


Where Two Raging Fires Meet

by ShitpostingfromtheBarricade



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: 10 Things I Hate About You AU, 10 things au, Alternate Universe - 10 Things I Hate About You (1999) Fusion, Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternating Perspective, Don't copy to another site, Enjolras POV, F/F, F/M, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Grantaire pov, M/M, Ten Things AU, Ten Things I Hate About You AU, and also I needed an outlet, any uncredited quote is probs Taming of the Shrew, basically everyone is under eighteen the majority of the fic, because 10 Things takes place in Tacoma Washington, but okay, i went full-American for this one, i will stomp you to death with my hooves, if you even think about sexualizing them, not how I expected my first fake dating au to go, the premise is similar mostly, two idiots pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-27
Updated: 2019-05-27
Packaged: 2020-03-20 04:59:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 36,313
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18985768
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShitpostingfromtheBarricade/pseuds/ShitpostingfromtheBarricade
Summary: Cosette can't date until her brother does, Marius is determined to date her, and Enjolras is determined to advance women's rights.A 10 Things I Hate About You AU.General warnings:hints at a potentially abusive homelife (not graphic), recurring discussion of food insecurity in America (mostly statistical)(more specific CWs available at the beginning of each chapter)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Wolfstar_Enjoltaire](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wolfstar_Enjoltaire/gifts).



> Happy Birthday, Darling. <3 Hope you like it.
> 
> (and, y'know, everyone else who reads it can like it too, if they want)
> 
> Thanks as always to [PieceOfCait](https://archiveofourown.org/users/PieceOfCait/pseuds/PieceOfCait), my absolute rock through everything writing and some unexpected et cetera-items.

“Courfeyrac, where have you been?” Enjolras hisses as his friend slides into the seat in front of him fifteen minutes into class. “You weren’t at lunch.”

They’ve already been divided up to discuss the previous night’s reading and fill out Ms. Lamarque’s discussion questions, but it doesn’t seem like a good idea to draw undue attention. It’s one of the rare days that Enjolras and Combeferre have been allowed to partner up, and if she realizes that Courfeyrac has joined in as well it seems likely that they’ll be split up.

Courfeyrac turns. “Officially? Nurse’s office. Unofficially, bathroom.”

Combeferre’s face grows concerned. “Do you need to go to the nurse?” 

“What? No. It’s Marius.”

‘Marius’ could mean any number of things: since leaving his grandfather’s last year, Courfeyrac has taken the man under his wing and discovered an impressively disappointing array of woefully underdeveloped skills that, through Courfeyrac’s master tutelage, Marius is slowly learning. Marius has always veered toward brilliance academically, which makes his apparent inability to do laundry or pick out his own clothes or even safely cross a street all the more baffling.

“What is it? Is he all right?” 

"In a manner of speaking," Courfeyrac sighs. "I literally watched him hit his head against a bathroom stall for two hours.”

Enjolras’s brow furrows. “That…doesn’t seem healthy.”

“He probably shouldn’t do that,” Combeferre agrees.

“Is that your professional opinion, Dr. Combeferre?”

“Yes.”

“What happened?” Enjolras prompts.

Courfeyrac throws up his hands. “Marius fancies himself in love.” 

Enjolras's lips purse. “Okay? So what’s the problem?”

“I think I can take a guess.”

“‘In love’ for Marius apparently means ‘we made eye-contact for five seconds in the hallway, I facebook-stalked her through second period, and by fourth period she was telling me she wasn’t allowed to date.’”

“Sounds about right." A small, self-satisfied smile finds its way to Conbeferre's face.

“I’m all for free love, but trust Pontmercy to take even that to new heights.”

Enjolras continues to stare at Courfeyrac. “Not allowed’?” ‘Doesn’t want,’ he can understand, but ‘not allowed’ is tripping all sorts of alarms.

“Yeah,” Courfeyrac shrugs. “She told him she couldn’t date until her brother does? Which, like, what kind of fucked-up patriarchal bullshit is that?”

“Courf,” Combeferre reprimands, a lecture and a warning in a word. The man nods to the left, and Enjolras can see Lamarque making her rounds.

The three of them quickly bow their heads over the work, scribbling answers that may or may not actually be correct. Really, who’s to say how a playwright from the 1500’s wanted them to interpret his work? When they see she’s passed them by, they all sit upright.

“You need to stop swearing when there’s teachers around.”

“Courfeyrac’s right, though,” Enjolras contends. “It’s ignorant at best and abusive at worst. The conditions make it clear that her father knows she’s mature enough to date but wants to hold it over her head like some kind of privilege with arbitrary conditions attached.”

Combeferre gives him an odd look. “Enjolras, you’ve never even dated anyone before.”

“Because I haven’t wanted to,” he clarifies, “but if I ever choose to, the option is available to me. This girl—Courf, what’s her name?”

“Cosette.”

“—doesn’t have that option.” Scoffing, he rolls his eyes. “And something tells me it’s no coincidence that her male brother does.”

“It’s messed up,” Courfeyrac says, shaking his head.

“It’s unfair,” Combeferre agrees.

“Does he even go here? What’s Cosette’s last name?”

“Fauchelevent, but I guess he has a different one? Goes by ‘Grantaire.’”

Combeferre nods. “I know him, he’s in my history course.”

“What’s the verdict?” Courfeyrac asks.

The other man is silent a moment. “I can see why a father hoping to keep his daughter from dating might set such a stipulation.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Courfeyrac asks, making a face. Enjolras is equally surprised: Combeferre is not usually one to pass judgment on appearance.

The man sighs. “Not like that. He can be...difficult. Our substitute’s word for it was ‘impossible,’ which isn’t entirely a stretch.”

Enjolras cocks an eyebrow. “So he’s stubborn.”

“Stubborn, argumentative, tangential, and despite all of this doesn’t seem to actually have any sort of stake in any point he makes.”

“Oh, so like if Enjolras didn’t believe in anything he said,” Courfeyrac volunteers. Enjolras turns to scowl at him, but his friend makes a fair point.

Perhaps wisely, Combeferre remains silent on the subject. “I’m surprised, though: doing something just to be contrary to a figure in power definitely seems up his alley. It’s possible that I’ve misread him entirely, if this really is the case.”

Courfeyrac’s face turns stormy. “Or things at home are worse than anyone has cared to look into.”

The three of them sit in silence before one-by-one turning back to their mostly-blank papers.

“Courf,” Enjolras whispers at last, “did Marius mention how Cosette gets to school?”

 

It’s easy enough to find the old beater. It’s exactly where Courfeyrac had said it’d be in the back of the lot, navy blue paint worn and discolored in several places. Enjolras had rushed straight from his last class to find it, and he’s glad that he did because he only has to wait a minute before he sees a man who matches Combeferre’s description heading toward the car and giving him a funny look.

“You’re Grantaire, right?” he calls.

“That’d be me.”

Enjolras pushes himself off of the car hood to confront the man. “What your father is doing is entirely sexist, tyrannical, and oppressive.”

The man’s eyebrows raise as he continues to chew his gum. “Uh, okay?” 

“There is no reason that your sister shouldn’t be allowed to date whomsoever she wants. She is her own independent woman and should be free to make whatever decisions she chooses, whether your father agrees with them or not.”

“Totally.”

Enjolras's eyes narrow. “Are you really so satisfied with the current state of affairs, then, that you’re content to accept whatever arbitrary conditions are thrust upon you?”

“I mean, generally speaking, yeah.” The man’s uncertain expression has shifted to an amused smirk. 

His blood pressure spikes. “You are in a position to do good, to make a difference! You can take a stand against your father’s hierarchical oppression and upset the status quo! You can grant your sister her freedom and allow her to proceed in life with dignity and independence.”

“I do value my sister’s dignity ever so much.”

He glares at the man. “Is this funny to you?”

Grantaire shrugs. “I mean, yeah.”

Little effort goes into containing Enjolras's scoff. He’d rather give up now, but unless Cosette has any other older brothers, this is his only option. “In the interest of assuring your sister’s liberation from heteronormative, gendered expectations, I would like to offer my services as your fake boyfriend. If you so choose.”

Despite their rocky introduction, Grantaire appears to be considering Enjolras. Courfeyrac has often told him that if he’d keep his mouth shut, he would be ‘irresistible to the general populace,’ an opinion Enjolras has never entirely been sure how to take. As he is measured now, though, he realizes that this might very well have gone better if he’d followed his friend’s advice. He’d been running on sheer adrenaline in the beginning, but now that he’s finished his part he feels himself deflating.

“Can I have the night to think on it?”

“Uh. Yes, certainly. Of course.” He thrusts his hands into his jacket pockets, trying not to visibly fidget.

“Thanks.” They stand awkwardly, regarding one another in silence. “Can I get to my car now?”

Well, Enjolras had been regarding him, anyway. “Sorry,” he apologizes, stepping out of the way. “Will you be needing my number?”

Grantaire looks back at him in that funny way he has been the entire...well, ‘conversation’ doesn’t seem to quite fit. Debate? Discussion. Monologue? Oh God, did he lecture again? “Sure, just uh. Do you have a piece of paper or something?”

He notices for the first time that Grantaire doesn’t appear to have a backpack with him and wonders how the man plans to get any work done at home. “Yeah, hold on.” 

A minute later, Grantaire is getting into his car with Enjolras’s number on a bright pink sticky-note. Enjolras isn’t totally sure what the protocol is for saying goodbye to someone you just pressured into pretending to date you, so he gives an awkward half-wave, adjusts his backpack, and heads toward his waiting bus.

 

—-

 

Grantaire waits until after dinner to speak with Cosette, rapping twice on her closed bedroom door. “Hey, can I come in?” 

“Yeah."

Cosette is leaning up against a giant stack of pillows. A book is propped open in her lap as she smiles over at him. Beside her, Éponine lays on her stomach on the made bed, papers scattered in front of her.

Closing the door behind him, Grantaire crosses his arms and leans back against it. “Is there a reason I received a lecture today on the tyrannical ways of our sexist father?”

Cosette’s eyebrows furrow. “I have no idea.” 

“Some energetic twink seemed to think that, if I dated him, you would be freed from the ‘bonds of your oppression.'”

Understanding dawns on her features, and she closes her book. “Okay, I can explain.”

Twisting onto her side, Êponine props her head up on a hand and adopts a bemused expression. “Please do.”

Cosette rolls her eyes at the other girl. “So Marius asked me out,” nevermind that he has no idea who Marius is, “and I didn’t want to say ‘yes,’ but I didn’t want to say ‘no,’ so I told him I couldn’t.”

Grantaire nods. “So far so good.”

“But then he asked me why, so I told him I wasn’t allowed, and he asked why not, and I panicked and told him that I couldn’t until...you...did?”

His head tips back until it hits the door, and he pulls a hand back through his hair. “Goddammit, Cosette.”

“I’m sorry, I really didn’t think he’d push the subject after that!”

“‘Intense’ is definitely the watchword for Marius,” Éponine says, grimacing apologetically.

“It’s fine, it’s fine. Just,” he sighs, “what do you want me to say to this kid? I’m fine with being the bad guy or whatever if you need me to be, but your Marion seems pretty persistent. Like...are you sure that just telling him the truth isn’t an option? ”

Cosette bites her lip and turns to Éponine, who sighs. "May as well just agree. At this point, it sounds like Social Justice Twink is already halfway to cornering your dad for an explanation, and like. Valjean's cool, but I'm not sure how down he’d be to lie just to save face."

Cosette looks back to him guiltily. “Please?”

Grantaire huffs. Even if he didn’t feel an intrinsic duty to protect his baby sister, her puppy-dog eyes are unfairly difficult to say ‘no’ to. “Yeah, yeah, I told you I’d do it. Besides, if we stick to double-dates and Mario decides to try anything, I can skip the foreplay and beat the shit out of him there and then.”

Both girls immediately burst into laughter.

“I don’t think that’s going to be—”

“Marius wouldn’t hold someone’s hand without quadruple-checking first for consent,” Éponine explains, shaking her head.

Grantaire frowns. This sounds extremely at-odds with the picture they’ve painted of the boy thus far. He shrugs the thought off, reaching into his back pocket for his phone and the sticky note stuck to the back of it.

“That him?” Éponine asks as he opens his contacts to add the blond. At least _someone_ is amused.

“My new boyfriend? Yep. Wasn’t big on adding his number until I knew for certain he wouldn’t be chasing me to kingdom come with a chainsaw for personally ending women’s rights.”

“I really am sorry,” Cosette repeats.

“Hey, whatever makes you feel safe,” he says, confirming the contact and tucking the device away again.

"Who is this punk he found for you, anyway?" Éponine asks, pushing herself upright.

“No fucking clue, I just saved him as ‘blond Elizabeth Stanton.’ Long hair, twinky, kind of entirely angelic? Had some weird patriotic ribbon thing—” 

Éponine starts laughing. “ _Enjolras_ asked you out? Oh my God, you have to do it. This is going to be _hilarious_.”

He raises his eyebrows, sighing. “You know him then?”

“You do too: he’s the one you bitched about every afternoon for a month last year for holding up the traffic with his petitions to diversify the reading curriculum.”

Grantaire’s expression turns to a scowl. “ _Avenging Angel?_ ”

“That’s the one!” Éponine cheers.

Cosette squints at him. “Didn’t you drive through where they were set up one day because they were making you late for work?”

“Yeah,” he nods, turning to open the door. “We’re not mentioning that to him.”

“I owe you for forever,” Cosette calls behind him.

“Never let my undying love go doubted again.”

“We’ll see,” Éponine responds as the door shuts.

Grantaire pulls out his phone once he’s in his room again, sitting down at his desk and propping his feet on his desk as he composes the message. He types and deletes three drafts before finally settling for the fourth.

[21.36] **You:** Hey boyfriend. It’s R.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Cliffnotes for the American schooling system (typically, though some districts vary)  
> Elementary school: kindergarten through 5th grade (5-10)  
> Middle school: 6th grade through 8th grade (11-13)  
> High school: 9th grade through 12th grade (14-18)
> 
> Freshman: 9th grade (14/15) or first year at uni  
> Sophomore: 10th grade (15/16) or second year at uni  
> Junior: 11th grade (16/17) or third year at uni  
> Senior: 12th grade (17/18) or fourth year at uni
> 
> Cosette is a sophomore, Grantaire is a senior, and everyone else are juniors.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Warnings:** None

Seeing Martinez in person clears up a lot of Grantaire’s confusion from the night before: the boy is wearing an argyle sweater vest over a striped button-down and corduroy trousers that fall just short of where they should to reveal light blue socks with pictures of goldfish on them. Hell, _Grantaire_ would be reluctant to turn down a date with him. He still would, firmly, but he’d feel extremely bad about it: Cosette never stood a chance.

(Grantaire could _crush_ him in a fight.)

He’s talking with her now while Enjolras stands to the other side of him, arms crossed with a bored expression; Grantaire suspects that this is what parents feel like accompanying their children on playdates. 

Grantaire’s text last night had been met with a brief confirmation (“ok”), and he’d felt no obligation to attempt any conversation beyond that. Now, though, he examines Enjolras: his backpack looks like he carries all of his textbooks to every class with him, and he taps his heel as though he doesn’t realize he’d doing it. His eyes have been darting around periodically, and Grantaire suspects that he’s looking for someone, but apparently the boy is still vaguely following the conversation because Grantaire sees him answer at seemingly appropriate times.

Unlike Grantaire. “Uh, sorry, what was that?”

Cosette looks up at him. “I was just telling Marius how Papa said that any date we have has to be a double-date.”

“Right. That is definitely a thing he said.” Crossing his arms to feign confidence that he definitely does not feel, Grantaire nods.

“So does their arrangement work for you?” Enjolras asks, and wow, the full force of the blond’s attention somehow manages to slam into him the same way it had yesterday. 

Forcing himself to recover, Grantaire's mouth stiffens as he glances toward Manfred. “What was the arrangement again?”

“Uh, Thursday? Afterschool, at the diner?” Mason’s voices cracks in his hopefulness, and yeah, Grantaire could snap him like a toothpick.

Thursday. Two days from now. “I have boxing ‘til 4.”

“We can wait until after,” Mac assures, nearly falling over himself in his eagerness.

Grantaire returns his attention to the blond. “And my...you? Does that work for you?”

Tilting his head slightly, Enjolras's expression takes on a wry quality. “It does.”

A silence passes between the group.

“Great!” Cosette says a little too brightly. “We’ll see you then!”

Enjolras nods and walks past them, but Marco remains at attention, staring at Cosette long enough that Grantaire wraps his arm around her shoulders to lead her away, waving awkwardly to the boy as they turn.

After a few steps he pulls his arm back from his sister and sees Éponine fall in-step with them on the other side of her. “What was that all about?” she asks.

“We,” Grantaire says matter-of-factly, “have a double-date Thursday. I’ll be gross and sweaty and _coated_ in pheromones, if you’re interested in tagging along.”

Éponine snorts. “As erotic as that sounds, hard pass.” 

“Your loss,” he shrugs. “Should I be waiting for you after school today?”

“Probably not, Tuesdays are Bible Study. I’ll see what things look like when I get home and let you know if you should set aside a plate.” Éponine’s face isn’t visible from this angle, but Grantaire suspects that she’s chewing the inside of her mouth.

“You know Gav and Zelma are always welcome,” Cosette says, gently bumping shoulders with the other girl.

“Yeah,” she answers absentmindedly. “We’ll see. I’ll text you?”

“I’ll be counting on it.” Cosette smiles at the girl as she peels off.

Grantaire waits until no one else is around to hear before he speaks. "Fucking _gay.”_

Cosette rolls her eyes, grinning. “Bye, R.”

 

—-

 

Courfeyrac told Enjolras that it’s okay to be nervous, and Enjolras believes him—he just sincerely isn’t nervous.

That is, until neither Cosette nor Grantaire are anywhere to be found as of 4:05PM. 

Marius is panicking enough for the both of them, and after having played Twenty Questions with his parents last night about the nature of his not-date Enjolras is in too deep to just let this go.

[16.05] **You:** where r u

His phone gets tucked into the pocket of his jacket as he leans back against the car Marius has borrowed from the Courfeyracs for evening. His other hand works a fidget-cube mindlessly for something to do besides getting Marius more worked up. He decides that if the duo aren’t here in five minutes, a phonecall will be made as a declaration of intent.

Gray storm clouds roll in overhead, and Enjolras tries to ignore Marius’s agitated pacing and increasingly improbable explanations for why Cosette might be standing him up for several more mindless minutes before a vibration sounds in his right pocket.

[16:08] **R:** Just finished showering, be right out.

Enjolras sighs before informing Marius of the status update. 

“You have Cosette’s phone number??” the man asks, looking equal parts distressed and hopeful.

“No,” he responds with as much patience as he can gather, “I have her bro—my date’s number. Grantaire’s. And he said they’ll be out soon.”

With the other half of their party’s attendance confirmed, Marius returns to fretting over the date itself as he had been since school let out.

“I don’t know Enjolras, was a diner okay for a first date?”

“Yes, Marius.”

“Maybe we should have done a movie first, though, so we’d have something to talk about.”

Enjolras draws his eyebrows. “On a school night?”

Marius huffs. “Am I overthinking this?”

“Yes.” Enjolras sees Marius flinch at the flatness of his tone and tries again, this time attempting to channel as much of Courfeyrac’s patient kindness as he can. “Look, it’s going to be fine: you’ll drive us to the diner, we’ll eat, you’ll talk with Cosette, and you’ll take us back.”

The man takes a deep breath. “You’re right. You’re right.” Thunder rolls overhead; Enjolras expects to hear Marius worrying himself over bad omens and the like again but is instead met with uncharacteristic silence. He looks over and sees Marius staring past him, slack-jawed and looking as if he has been struck. Enjolras turns to follow the man’s gaze.

They’re still a fair distance off, but it’s undeniably Cosette and Grantaire who have just exited the school. Enjolras waves an arm over his head to assure that the pair have spotted them and, at Cosette’s answering wave, lets it fall back at his side. They make no visible effort to hasten their pace, and Enjolras is in no hurry. As they draw nearer, he frowns.

Cosette is wearing a brightly-colored dress, which is fine—appropriate, even—but Grantaire appears to have on a pair of gray sweatpants and a white tank top with a towel strewn over his shoulders. A bag hangs at his side, strap nearly dragging on the ground. 

The two’s conversation comes to an apparent close as they fall in in front of Enjolras and Marius. Up close, it’s even worse: Grantaire’s hair is still dripping, and his tank top is wet through in several spots. The air is thick with the tang of rain, but through it Enjolras can smell the pungent scent of whatever body wash the man has used and the deodorant he must have slathered on after. Cosette, on the other hand, looks extremely put-together, hair styled differently from how he’d seen it Tuesday morning and bright lips indicating the presence of makeup. It seems impossible to believe that they come from the same household.

“C-c-Cosette!” Marius stutters out at last, an awkward reminder of his existence. “You look—stunning, ravishing, i-incredible!”

The woman bestows a smile on him. “Thank you. You look rather dapper yourself.”

Out of the corner of his eye he sees Marius’s countenance inflaming; Enjolras’s attention remains on his date, who has been regarding him with quiet amusement since they came to their stop.

“Enjolras,” the man grins.

“Grantaire,” Enjolras returns flatly.

They regard one another for several beats before Grantaire speaks again. “Are we waiting for anything in particular? It’s looking like rain.”

“Right, yes!” Marius jolts. “Let’s go!”

Marius takes his time walking Cosette over to the front passenger seat and opening the door to allow her in as Enjolras lets himself into the backseat, Grantaire seated on the far other side. Inside the car, the fragrance of Grantaire’s hygiene products only compounds, a heady combination that leaves Enjolras torn between wanting to open a window and letting himself drown in it.

As they wait for Marius to finish coddling Cosette, Enjolras huffs. “Do you _own_ a collared shirt?” The man’s efforts to dry his hair must have been token at best; droplets of water speckle the neckline of his tank top, dappling his collarbones and sliding effortlessly down toned muscles. 

That can’t be good for the interior.

Grantaire raises his eyebrows. “Yeah, why?”

“Did it not occur to you to maybe _wear_ it on our ‘date’? Or at least look even slightly like you’re trying?”

The man snorts. “We literally just have to be there. Cosette doesn’t care, and I don’t think Marvin’s even realized I’m here yet.”

Enjolras considers the man’s words and concedes the point. “All right then, let’s get this over with.”

 

The car ride to the diner seems to take at least twice as long as it normally would, which might be because Marius Pontmercy is the slowest and most careful driver that Enjolras has ever had the misfortune of riding with, or it might be because no one has said a single word since the car started up. He distantly hopes that the whole date isn’t like this—but then, this isn’t about him. One evening in the service of a friend (‘s friend) is hardly wasted.

Still, their final arrival at the diner is a welcome one, and Enjolras only barely waits for the car to stop before he’s unbuckling himself and escaping the enclosed space for fresh air and something besides 90s boy band hits. The scent of incoming rain hits harder now, fat droplets already visible on the blacktop and accompanied by the smells of asphalt and stale fries.

Enjolras goes ahead to the door, assuming everyone else will fall in behind him. He holds it open for Marius and waits for the other two, now standing beside the car murmuring to one another.

“Just—go ahead in,” Cosette calls. Grantaire shoots him a scathing glance like he’s interrupting something, and Enjolras shrugs before letting the door fall shut. 

Inside, Marius gives him a confused look. “They said to go on, we’ll wave them down when they get in.” 

Marius seems uncertain, glancing over Enjolras’s shoulder as if to confirm that his date is still present, before turning. “Okay. Let’s find a booth.”

They end up picking one on the far side of the restaurant, flush against the window. It might be a nice view were the sky not already dark and stormy. The inside of the diner, by contrast, is bright and overlit; the whole venue is done up in a style reminiscent of the 60s, checkered floors and red seating and chrome highlights everywhere. The petrichor hasn’t reached indoors yet, the odor of fries and ketchup and burgers assuming its place.

This time, Marius is put-together enough to react before Enjolras when Cosette and Grantaire make their appearance several minutes later, jumping to his feet and waving both hands in the air unnecessarily. Cosette covers a giggle with a hand, but Grantaire scowls uncomfortably. He’s finally had the sense to put on a black jacket, and when he arrives at the table he doesn’t sit.

“Enjolras,” he says instead, stiffly. Technically he's smiling, but it looks like he’s using all of the wrong muscles to do it. “Might I speak with you alone?”

Enjolras glances up to where Marius still stands. The freckled man turns back and shrugs, and Cosette appears entirely unconcerned with the events. 

“Sure.”

He follows Grantaire back toward the bathrooms, dodging two children who weave their way between them back to their tables. They stop outside of the staff room doors, and Grantaire covers his face with a hand before pushing it back through still-damp hair and sighing.

“We have a problem.”

Enjolras raises his eyebrows. “Already? What’s happened?”

Grantaire turns to face out of the narrow hallway. “Our neighbor’s here. Cosette saw her car outside.”

He frowns. “Is there anything in particular I should know about her?”

“If she sees us, she’s telling our dad.”

“Isn’t that kind of the point?”

Grantaire looks pained that he’s going to have to spell this out, and honestly, Enjolras feels pained that he’s making the man do so. “Let’s be real here: this might not be the only date we have to fake together.”

He hadn’t considered this, but it makes sense. Enjolras nods.

“If it was a one-off, we could just say things didn’t work out, but if Fantine sees us hating the hell out of being here and then hears that we’re continuing to go on dates?”

“It looks suspicious,” he surmises.

“As all hell."

Arching his eyebrows, Enjolras looks the man up and down. “I’m not the one in sweats.”

Grantaire huffs. “Look, I get it, I didn’t think this date-thing through, but there’s small choice in rotten apples.”

Enjolras holds out his hands in disbelief. “What does that even—”

“Can we maybe focus on the things we can control right now? Like acting like a couple who wants to be here?”

Air expells sharply through Enjolras's nose. “Right. Okay. What did you have in mind?”

The man rubs the back of his neck, looking past Enjolras. “Ah. Smiling, I guess? Exchanges where we say more than two sentences to one another. Handholding when appropriate?”

This is...a much lower bar than he’d anticipated, but on reflection Enjolras is forced to acknowledge that it's new territory for them. “Hugging? Kissing?”

Grantaire gives him a strange look. “Are you anticipating an imminent need for either of those?”

Feeling embarrassed for even suggesting it, Enjolras shrugs. “Greetings and goodbyes? I usually hug my friends, but if you’re uncomfortable with that—”

“No, no.” The man sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Hugging is fine. We can negotiate kissing later if it seems necessary for some reason, but for now I’d rather...not.”

“Sounds good to me.” They stand in silence for another beat. “Anything else, or…?

Grantaire’s lips purse, and he looks past Enjolras back into the brightly lit main room once more. “No, I think that should be it.”

“Let’s head back out then.”

The lights somehow seem twice as bright on reentry. Enjolras has already forgotten where they were sitting before and ends up having to follow Grantaire back to the table. In their absence, Cosette and Marius have arranged themselves to be seated across from one another. Enjolras sees them before they see him and Grantaire, and he notes that both seemed to be waiting in somewhat uncomfortable silence until Cosette spots them. 

“Grantaire!” she exclaims, brightening up immediately. Marius peaks over the back of the seat, a pleading smile on his face.

“Hope we didn’t miss too much,” Grantaire grins, sliding into the booth next to his sister.

“Nothing important,” Marius assures.

“I think that means they were gossiping about us,” Grantaire says, turning to Enjolras and raising a conspiratorial eyebrow.

Enjolras is good at structured conversations with a definitive point. Casual banter, with Grantaire of all people? Not his specialty. “Probably.”

“They, uh,” Marius starts. “The waitress dropped off menus and took our drink orders. We just ordered water, is that okay?

“That’s perfect,” Grantaire affirms. It's odd to see the man in this more laid-back and amenable state, and he can feel Marius relaxing beside him. 

“Let’s get these passed out, then.” Enjolras sits up as he speaks, grabbing the stack of menus at the end up the table and distributing them. 

They examine their options in silence for a minute before Enjolras finally speaks. “Grantaire,” he asks, smiling over the menu, “see anything that looks good?”

“Four things that I can eat and one for Cosette.” Though he’s speaking pleasantly enough, Enjolras can feel waves of impatience rolling off of him. “Cosette, how are you fairing?”

“Ooh, where’s the one?” she asks, leaning over him.

“French fries, plain. I have a feeling in my bones that a salad section is coming up, though.”

Enjolras raises his eyebrows and looks over at Marius, who looks absolutely mortified. Turning his attention back across the table, he resigns himself to handling the situation. “I’m so sorry, I guess we never asked: do you have any dietary restrictions?”

Cosette looks up at him and smiles. “I’m vegan.”

Grantaire continues his critical examination of the menu. “Vegetarian.”

Ah. “Well, the vegan options here are pretty pitiful. They do have a vegan burger that you can request with no cheese or mayonnaise if you’re tired of salads and willing to risk it.”

Grantaire glances across at him, seeming to reconsider him, before turning back to his sister. “Cosette?”

“That sounds perfect,” she smiles, closing her menu and placing it neatly in front of her. Out of the corner of his eye he sees Marius give a grateful sigh. 

Grantaire leafs through the menu more quickly now, apparently already having made up his mind. “Everyone know what they want, then?” he asks.

Enjolras nods, noting the matching responses of everyone else at the table. Marius raises a hand to flag down their waitress—or at least, Enjolras assumes that’s what’s happening until the man begins snapping. Horrified, Enjolras hurriedly pushes down his acquaintance’s hand before looking around the room. He makes eye-contact with a waitress where she leans against the counter before raising his hand in a half-wave. When he’s confirmed that she is approaching, he turns back to the man beside him. He has no idea what he’s going to say, but fortunately he doesn’t have to.

“Do you _want_ her to spit in our food? What is wrong with you?” Grantaire hisses.

Okay, so maybe it’s unfortunate, but it’s bought Enjolras a moment to collect his thoughts.

Marius sputters. “Well—but—how else would she—” 

“Her eyes, maybe?” 

“He didn’t know better, _Grantaire_.” Enjolras grits, willing the man to back down.

The full intensity of Grantaire’s disdain turns to him for a second before reducing to a scowl. 

“It’s true,” Marius insists. “They weren’t...my grandfather, I mean, he—”

“Ready to order?” the waitress interrupts. It’s probably for the best: sympathetic though Marius’s story is, Enjolras’s limited (nonexistent) dating experience tells him that it’s probably not appropriate for a first date.

They go around the table, Grantaire raising his eyebrows at Enjolras’s twin order to Cosette’s of a vegan burger, trading his fries for a side salad (which earns additional height to his fake-date’s brows). The waitress leaves soon after, abandoning them to scramble in the uncomfortable silence that apparently preceded his and Grantaire’s arrival. 

“You really do look lovely today,” Marius says at last. His expression is earnest and flushed, but he manages the words without stuttering, which Enjolras marks as a noteworthy achievement for the man.

Grantaire grins before opening mouth like he’s going to say something, but a soft _thud_ occurs in time with his flinch, and the mouth resolutely shuts.

“I think you might have mentioned so earlier, but I could always stand to hear it again,” Cosette says, smiling gracefully. 

The freckled man goes bright red. “I mean, of course. You look lovely every day. Lovelier than, uh. A spring day.”

Everyone glances out the window with varying levels of subtlety to where the heavens now pour down; Enjolras suspects he is not the only one at the table biting back a laugh. 

“Summer day,” the man beside him corrects.

“I’d wager she’s apt to be a good deal more temperate.”

Marius’s eyes alight at Grantaire’s response, and he seems to scramble for whatever purchase has been offered to him. “Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, and summer’s lease hath all too short a date!”

Grantaire and Cosette exchange amused looks, and Marius seems to be waiting expectantly for some kind of reaction.

“What?” 

Grantaire shoots Enjolras a confused look. “Isn’t junior year basically exclusively Elizabethan authors and works?”

“We studied this poem last month,” Marius whispers, nudging Enjolras gently. “It’s one of the most famous love poems of all time.”

Enjolras shrugs. “I’ve never cared much for poetry.”

He’s vaguely aware of Cosette’s expression lighting up as she looks to Grantaire, who leans forward, crossing his arms over the table with an amused glint in his eye. “Oh yeah? Why not?”

Enjolras's shoulders raise again. “I mean, there’s not much point, is there? Just say what you mean, no need to dance around the point.”

“Sometimes ‘the point’ isn’t that simple, and poetry is the most effective way to convey the information.” 

Enjolras rolls his eyes. “Poetry, it’s...pretty,” he shrugs, “but if you really want to convey a message, just say it. You can’t possibly tell me that creating arbitrary rules around line and syllable structure lends anything more to the meaning than aesthetic properties.”

He realizes suddenly that this is definitely not what he should be doing if the goal is to be convincing to anyone of this date, but when he glances at Cosette she looks absolutely delighted by the turn of events. 

Marius, however, puts a hand on his shoulder, speaking low and insistently. “Enjolras, poetry has power and dimensions that mere traditional vernacular cannot properly capt—”

“Marius, let the adults speak,” Cosette commands.

In this time, Grantaire has not looked away from him, instead sitting up properly and appearing several inches taller than when the date had begun. “We don't read and write poetry because it's cute,” he declares, voice raising above the levels Enjolras would traditionally consider acceptable for indoor dining experiences. Glancing around, he tries to draw Grantaire’s attention to the other patrons, but the man either doesn’t notice or doesn’t care. “We read and write poetry because we are members of the human race. And the human race is filled with passion. And medicine, law, business, engineering, these are noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life. But poetry, beauty, romance, love, these are what we stay alive for.”

Enjolras blinks several times before surveying the reactions at the table. Marius appears absolutely mesmerized, Cosette amused, and Grantaire’s expression is filled with smug triumph. None of them have too much time to bask in these emotions before a woman appears from another table.

“Grantaire? I thought I heard _Dead Poets Society_ being quoted!” the woman exclaims. She has dark skin, bright white teeth, and blond hair teased out into a large afro.

“Hey Fantine,” Grantaire grins. For all of his earlier anxiety, he looks more relaxed in her presence than he has the entire date.

“Mom!” Cosette exclaims, reaching an arm out in front of her brother and clasping hands with the women.

Across the table, Enjolras manages to meet Grantaire’s eye. _Mom?_ he mouths.

 _Later_ , the man responds.

Fantine seems to take inventory of the situation then. “And who are your friends?” she asks, turning to him and Marius. There’s a knowing look in her eye that Enjolras isn’t entirely sure how to navigate.

“Mom, this is Marius and Enjolras,” Cosette introduces.

Marius leaps to his feet, knocking his legs against the table in a way that sounds extremely painful and leaning over to offer Fantine his hand. “It is an honor to meet you. You have a beautiful daughter.”

She laughs, letting go of Cosette’s hand to pump Marius’s twice before moving it to Grantaire’s shoulder. “I like to think my nephew’s pretty cute too,” she says, looking to Enjolras with a wink.

Enjolras smiles and nods. _Nephew?_ He’ll have to ask Grantaire later, and Grantaire’s expression reads like he already knows this. 

“So what are we all doing out here?” she asks, looking around the table.

“We were just—” Marius starts, only to be cut off by Cosette.

“We’re on a double-date,” she explains. “Me and Marius, Grantaire and Enjolras.”

The way Fantine eyes Grantaire and Cosette makes Enjolras think she’ll have questions for them after the date as well. 

“Well, I’ll let you kids be then,” the woman says at last. “Wouldn’t want to be spoiling your date night, and I have my own clients to be getting back to anyway.” She grins indulgently, and for a flash Enjolras thinks he sees Grantaire mirrored in her smile. 

There’s a beat of silence once the neighbor has left before Marius speaks up. “Your mom seems so nice! What does she do?”

While Cosette gushes over her mother’s burgeoning career as a designer, Enjolras crosses his arms and purses his lips, fixing the man across the table from him with an unimpressed look. Grantaire, for his part, meets the stare with an equally unmoved expression.

“Hey Lovebirds,” Cosette teases. Is Cosette in on this? Enjolras knows he hasn’t told Marius, but that’s because Marius has enough on his plate without worrying himself over the circumstances behind his date. “Mind taking a break from making lovey eyes at each other to hand us our waters?”

She must know then, because they were making decidedly _un_ -lovey eyes at one another. Enjolras flushes nevertheless as he passes the glasses, and he ignores Grantaire’s mute snickering across the table because _kicking your not-date is not how you convincingly land a second fake date._

And now that he’s met his audience, he’s all the more aware of the date-etiquette that he is utterly unfamiliar with. He sips his water, awkwardly peering around the table and hoping for someone to pick up the conversation now that Marius has exhausted all two subjects he seems to have had prepared. Enjolras doesn’t trust himself not to pick another argument with Grantaire, and to be honest he doesn’t entirely trust Grantaire not to either. As such, his eyes fall on Cosette.

Cosette’s straw remains untouched in its wrapper beside her glass. She smiles politely enough, but her attention seems evenly balanced between Enjolras, Marius, and her brother. Maybe he should make up an excuse to step out with Grantaire so she’ll feel comfortable speaking more candidly with her date? But no, that seems counterintuitive to the ‘no arguing’ plan, and if the last time they left is any sort of indication their absence will not actually help. Also, it’s still raining outside, and loitering around staff real estate again seems like a recipe for disaster.

An exasperated sigh sounds, followed by an offering. “Enjolras. I hear you’re invested in social justice.” 

Enjolras raises his eyebrows at Grantaire where he sits slumped over the table, a hand scratching at his scalp. “You hear correctly.”

“What’s your latest...project?”

Cosette actually looks interested, and despite the delivery Grantaire’s efforts seem innocent enough. 

“Addressing how our school handles student lunch debt.” Sitting up a little straighter, he glances meaningfully toward Cosette before looking back at the dark-haired man. “Were you aware that student lunch balances are not allowed to go more than $10 into deficit? That means that any student owing the school more than ten dollars for lunch goes hungry for the day. And of course, this isn’t a problem for the students coming to school from homes who have enough: this is only further targeting students from lower-income backgrounds, the very students frequently coming into school in the morning hungry and taking part in the paper bag program for weekend meals. 

“In addition to that, did you know that students at Padua High are not allowed to graduate if they owe the school money? Last year, that meant 4% of qualifying seniors did not graduate due not to an inability to do the work, but an inability to afford to eat. Again, punishing the poor for being poor and only further widening the already-existing wage-gap.

“And for what? So the school can scrounge together a paltry $80 extra dollars that, rather than going toward paying teachers or buying materials, instead continues to support the school’s athletics program and purchases a new scoreboard? It’s disgusting that the school is so disinterested in supporting student success.”

A quick scan shows that Marius, who has heard this at afterschool meetings before, has eyes only for Cosette; fair enough, he concedes. Cosette seems invested in what he’s saying, only improving his opinion of her, but Grantaire is openly rolling his eyes.

“Something you’d like to say?” he challenges. He knows he shouldn’t, but he’s also beyond caring. 

“I mean,” the man shrugs, “schools aren’t exactly charities. They’re state-funded by local area taxes, and they do have a budget. If they don’t hold students to paying for lunch or set limits to the debt, the entire lunch program budget is throwing money in a hole. Not only that, but the poor that you’re saying are targeted by this theoretically are already on free- and reduced-lunch program. And really, $80? What’s that going to buy for a staff of over fifty teachers? A science textbook and a half? Some whiteboard markers? Besides, the money used for the athletics program is frequently also the revenue of the athletics program, which goes back into the school.”

Grantaire hasn’t even finished his half-baked (maybe three-quarters baked) arguments before Enjolras feels his nostrils flaring and jaw working in anticipation for his opportunity to respond.

“Yes, free- and reduced-priced lunches are options for the very bottom percentage of income-households, but any four-person family making more than $30k a year is barely eligible for those resources, and $30k is a suitable income for a budget-conscious family of two. This is where Padua is also running into its dropout issue that it loves to complain about but refuses to do anything to fix: these students then, as soon as they hit the legal age to work, start taking up part-time jobs. They’re not legally allowed to work past midnight, so that cuts the number of positions available to them already, so as soon as they hit the legal dropout age they’re out of here. And that’s not to mention that when they are working those part-time minimum wage jobs, their energy levels are lower, and they don’t have as much time to study or do homework. Their grades are dropping, they aren’t receiving positive reinforcement at school and have no incentive to be here, and on top of all of that they have a forty-five minute block of time that they’re forced to sit through where they have no food to eat if they didn’t bring it in themselves.”

He takes a breath to continue and is interrupted by someone clearing their throat to his right. Enjolras turns, sheepishly acknowledging the waitress from before where she stands, tray aloft and full of food. She gives a begrudging smile, putting their meals and sides on the table with seemingly no regard for who ordered what.

“Enjoy,” she offers blandly as she turns, already heading back to the counter where she’d been seated before.

His eyes flicker up to the man across from him, who is still giving Enjolras a wry sort of amused smirk.

“I’m not finished yet.”

Grantaire grins, hands rising in defense. “Never said you were.”

They continue like that once everyone has swapped plates and has their respective order. More of Grantaire’s arguments are reasonable points than Enjolras feels entirely comfortable admitting, but the conversation has also been veering more and more toward the education system itself, starting with teacher salaries and burnout rates before shifting to public versus charter and private schools before shifting again to types of intelligences and the failings of standardized testing.

In fact, he totally forgets about his meal until Grantaire reaches forward, helping himself to a cherry tomato from Enjolras’s salad. Enjolras smacks the food from the man’s hand, who only grins. “You finally gonna eat, then?”

“I’m not gonna let you steal from my plate without asking.”

“Oh, Sugar-bear,” the man pouts, “I thought we were _there_.”

Enjolras snorts, rolling his eyes and trying not to smile as he spears a wilted piece of lettuce. He eyes Grantaire’s food. “You don’t see me stealing your fries.” He must have missed the man eating his grilled cheese—but no, now that he thinks about it, Grantaire had definitely had several well-articulated points marred by mouthfuls of sandwich.

“Only because your short arms can’t reach across the table.”

Cosette giggles at this, and Enjolras shrugs. It’s true in every way that matters. He glances over to the freckled man beside him, and— _shit_.

Marius is stiff and uncomfortable, eyes wide and food long-since consumed. It doesn’t take much reflection to realize that the man hasn’t said a thing since their food arrived, and Cosette’s attention has hardly been on him since Enjolras and Grantaire began their...discussion.

(Argument. It’s an argument. But like...a good argument. That’s a thing, right? A friendly debate, really.) 

It occurs to him to apologize, but instead he digs into his sandwich and hopes that Marius takes his opportunity to talk with his date for what it is.

Either the freckled man doesn’t realize it’s his turn to speak, or he doesn’t have anything to say. Enjolras finishes his salad and burger in silence, the rest of the table apparently having nothing else to offer. He spots Cosette and Grantaire exchanging uncomfortable glances as they pick their way through the last of their fries. Marius gives a couple of false starts, but the words seem to die in his throat before they’re ever realized. 

No sooner is the last of his salad gone does Grantaire raise a hand, waving for the waitress’s attention and making pointed eye-contact with Marius the whole while, which, fair. Marius has the good sense to look embarrassed as the waitress makes her way back.

“Anyone interested in dessert?”

Under different circumstances, Enjolras might be, but following the past five minutes of stoic quiet, he allows the opportunity to pass him by.

“Not today,” Grantaire answers cordially. “Can we get our checks, please?”

“Will that be all together or separate?”

Enjolras is about to request separate checks, but Marius finally seems to find his voice. “I’ll cover it.”

Grantaire shoots a brief glance in the man’s direction before returning his attention to the waitress. “One check would be great.” The man has the grace to wait until the waitress is out of earshot before cocking an eyebrow and a loaded smirk at Enjolras. “Silence in the face of inequity among men? Why Enjolras, I’m shocked.”

The argument that proceeds takes them to the counter (where Marius does indeed cover the entire bill), out the door, and through the entire car ride back to the school. The rain has stopped by the time they get back, and parking lot is dim from dusk and gray clouds, street lamps providing most of their light. 

Marius pulls up two spots from where Grantaire’s car sits alone in the parking lot, and Enjolras exits automatically in sync with the others. He’s gone around Marius’s car and is prepared to continue the conversation in Grantaire’s before he remembers that Marius is his ride home, that he and Grantaire part ways here. Their conversation is done for the night—potentially forever, if Marius’s date went as poorly as it seems to have—and this sits in Enjolras’s stomach differently than how he’d expected.

Marius stands next to him once more across from the siblings. “Thank you for coming out with us tonight,” the man says. It comes out sounding very nearly confident, and Enjolras quietly suspects that Marius has been practicing it the entire drive back.

“Thank you for inviting us,” the woman responds warmly. “Tonight was fun.”

Grantaire’s head bobs, smile tight and uncomfortable as he pushes both hands down in his jacket pockets.

“Maybe we can do it again sometime,” Enjolras offers as weak penance for ruining the night.

“Maybe,” Cosette says, and Enjolras doesn’t miss the eyebrow Grantaire raises at that. 

“Grantaire,” Enjolras nods.

“Enjolras,” the man returns. Grantaire pauses a moment longer, appearing to scan the group before turning on his heel and walking around to the driver’s side of his car without another word. Cosette waves to both of them before turning and getting into the passenger seat. 

Enjolras and Marius watch the car pull out of the lot before getting into their own. When Enjolras finally settles into the passenger seat beside Marius, the freckled man is frozen with his hands at ten and two, eyes ahead.

“Marius,” Enjolras sighs, prepared to apologize.

“Did you hear her?”

He’s taken aback a moment. “Um. Which part?”

“‘ _Maybe_ ,’” the man repeats, turning to look at Enjolras with a growing smile. “She said ‘maybe’!” 

Far be it from Enjolras to rain on Marius’s parade, but he bore witness to that trainwreck. “I mean,” he starts, trying to find a tactful way to destroy the man’s dreams, “she could still say ‘no.’”

“But she could say ‘yes,’” Marius grins. “You heard her: she said it was _fun_. And now I have a better idea of where we can go next time. I mean, I’ll need to go through conversation topics with Courf, but _I still have a chance_.”

Enjolras’s doubts remain, but in the face of the man’s sheer optimism he finds himself utterly without any will to disprove him. “All right.”

Marius starts the car up, humming something bouncy and celebratory.

“And you paying? Was that okay?”

Marius shrugs. “Courf’s parents have been giving both of us an allowance, and I still had money leftover from what they gave me for new clothes.” They pull to a stop at the intersection, a formality in the face of the nonexistent traffic. “By the way, I’m really sorry about how things went with Grantaire.”

“Hm? What do you mean?”

Marius turns to look at him, the glow of the red light illuminating his face. “You guys fought the entire night,” he explains apologetically. “I didn’t mean to make you feel obligated to stick it out.” Green light floods through the windshield, and Marius turns back to the road. 

 

When Marius drops Enjolras off at his home, his thoughts are still in an odd jumble. He wants to get to the quiet of his room to process things, but at the shut of the front door he hears his father’s voice from the living room.

“Hey Kiddo.” Enjolras pauses at the entryway to the room at the base of the stairs and watches his father lower the newspaper to smile at him. “How was your fake date?”

Enjolras huffs through his nose, thinking. “We argued the whole time.”

From where she sits beside his father with a book, his mother gives him an odd look. “How do you feel about that?”

His eyes turn toward the ceiling in thought as he fusses at the fidget cube in his pocket again. “I’m not sure yet.”

His mom raises an eyebrow. “If you wanna talk about it, we’re always here. Just keep your own personal wellbeing in mind.”

“I gave as good as I got, Mom,” he grins. “I always do.”

“I don’t doubt it,” she laughs.

“I think I’m going up for the night? We ate at the diner, and I have work to do.”

“All right Bud, don’t push yourself too hard.” His dad disappears behind newspaper once more, and Enjolras smiles gratefully at both of his parents before heading up the steps.

He really only has math tonight, and they had time to get a lot of that done in class. He spreads the work out over his desk nevertheless and proceeds to stare at the pages blankly for several minutes before giving up on the effort and pulling out his phone. 

 

[18.48] **You:** hey ferre  
[18.48] **You:** is there a reason you didnt tell me hes smart???

 

[18.52] **Courf:** Marius says it went well  
[18.53] **Courf:** Give it to me straight Enj how bad was it  
[18.55] **You:** ngl it was bad

 

[18.58] **Ferre:** Oh.  
[18.59] **Ferre:** Yeah, he’s smart.  
[18.59] **Ferre:** Why?  
[19.01] **You:** ill tell u tmrw

 

[19.03] **Courf:** Did u argue w Grantaire the whole time ?????  
[19.04] **You:** yeah  
[19.05] **You:** but only bc it was weird  
19.06] **Courf:**?????????  
[19.06] **Courf:** What does that even mean ?????????  
[19.07] **Courf:**??????????????????????????  
[19.09] **You:** they werent talking  
[19.09] **You:** n it was fun  
[19.11] **Courf:** Enj  
[19.11] **Courf:** Enjolras  
[19.11] **Courf:** Louis-Philippe Napoleon Enjolras  
[19.12] **You:** thats not my name  
[19:12] **Courf:** w/e  
[19.13] **Courf:** Were u flirting ?  
[19.13] **You:** no.  
[19.14] **Courf:** …  
[19.14] **Courf:** …  
[19.14] **Courf:** …  
[19.15] **Courf:** I dont believe u  
[19.16] **You:** idc  
[19.16] **You:** hows ur hw coming along  
[19.17] **Courf:** Shhhhhhhhhhhh

 

[19.25] **You:** ok but u still have no idea what ur talking about bc al gore did make a political difference with his call 2 action via the 2007 live earth concerts regardless of whether or not it also happened to be good 4 publicity

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Pretty straightforward references this chapter: Marius and Grantaire were quoting [Sonnet 18](http://www.shakespeare-online.com/sonnets/18.html), and Grantaire (as cited in-text) was quoting [Robin Williams's monologue](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aS1esgRV4Rc) from _Dead Poets Society_.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Warnings:** none

“Okay, I’m going to need you to walk through this for me one more time: what?”

Grantaire can see Cosette still blushing in the rearview mirror, so he accepts the onus of explaining the events since last Thursday to Éponine. “The date was objectively horrible.”

“Right.”

“Cosette and Matthew barely spoke to one another.”

“According to plan.”

“Fantine was there, so I couldn’t tank the date as intentionally as we’d hoped.”

“Understandably.”

“But Marvin’s friend argued with me the whole time anyway.”

“On-brand.”

“Cosette offered that _maybe_ we could hang out again sometime—”

“Because she’s kindness personified.”

“—which apparently Mathis took to be an actual invitation—”

“Classic Marius.”

“—and actually asked her out again this morning. To which Cosette tried to use me as an excuse again, which backfired because Macklemore’s friend—”

“ _Enjolras_ ,” Cosette interrupts pointedly.

“—was there to remind me of Valjean’s horrible patriarchal oppression and actually willing to double-date again.”

“Which I’m sure has _nothing_ to do with the fact that you’ve been texting your ‘blond Elizabeth Stanton’ nonstop since?” Éponine teases.

Grantaire rolls his eyes. “I suppose you’re the one behind my phone’s disappearance Sunday morning, then?” 

“Gav, but yeah.” There’s no embarrassment or remorse in her voice, and he wasn’t really expecting to find any.

“Anything juicy?” Cosette urges.

He hears Éponine scoff behind him. “Just texts upon texts about politics and corporate greed and sometimes breakfast propaganda.”

“It’s valuable in its own cultural right,” Grantaire defends.

“Hey, I have no stake in this, save it for Angelface.” Éponine is quiet in the backseat, her head resting on Cosette’s shoulder as Grantaire makes the final turn onto their street. “So this date, when is it?”

Cosette sighs. “Friday afterschool.”

“Friday? As in, this-coming Friday? Four days from now, Friday?”

Éponine’s face is obscured by the angle she sits up at, but Grantaire can see his confusion mirrored in Cosette's expression. “Yes?”

The girl laughs. “Marius, you brilliant fool.”

 

Éponine doesn’t expand on her reaction Monday, but when they meet with their fake-dates Friday it all falls into place. 

“I hope you don’t mind,” Meringue says apologetically, “but Éponine’s one of my oldest friends, and I know you two get along, so I invited her along in case—”

_In case you realize you don’t know anything about my sister?_

“—to help,” the boy concludes awkwardly. He looks up at her as if suddenly realizing that this is something he should have asked before they were already gathered for the date (hint: it is). “Um, is that okay?”

Both girls barely holding back laughter, and Grantaire himself is biting the insides of his cheeks to keep his own smile at bay. 

“I think that’s a wonderful idea, Marius,” Cosette manages. The boy lights up, and Grantaire tries to push down the feeling that Cosette is giving him too much leniency again. “So are we just waiting on Enjolras, then?”

Grantaire’s secretly glad that he’s not the one who has to ask. Yes, Enjolras is probably the only part of the excursion that will be even moderately interesting without it being at Magnus’s expense, but Éponine and Cosette hardly need any more reason to taunt him. He’s totally tuned out the others’ conversation again and so is surprised to see Enjolras run out of the school. 

“Sorry,” Enjolras pants, eyes flickering from person to person before landing in Grantaire, and can Enjolras possibly look slightly less _like that_ right now? “I had to talk with—I mean—”

“Catch your breath,” Cosette tell hims.

He does, finally standing upright to his full height. “I had to talk with Courf and Ferre.” Éponine and Martini nod like they know who that is. “R, I think you know Ferre? He has a class with you.”

“You’ll need to be more specific.”

Enjolras’s expression turns unimpressed. “The only junior taking senior-level courses? History?”

The blond seriously overestimates how observant Grantaire is in class. “Oh, right. Him.” His fake-date appears unconvinced, but fortunately there is no requisite quiz before this date can start, and Grantaire would like to move on from the awkward friendship circle that they’ve formed in front of the school. “Are we ready to go? I think it’s my turn to drive this time.” He whirls his keys on his pointer finger.

Max looks like he wants to argue the point, but all it takes is a polite look and a pointed smile for the boy to apparently decide that it isn’t worth the trouble.

 

Grantaire is certain that Marimba had invited Éponine to make things less awkward, but _damn_ did the kid miscalculate. Enjolras seems to be trying to be better-behaved this time around from his seat up front with him (Éponine and Cosette both leaned in to flutter their eyelashes innocently in his rearview mirror, the brats), which only quadruples the discomfort when Éponine smugly takes the middle seat, leaving Marble completely cut off from the other two’s naturally flowing conversation.

They get out at the cheesiest putt-putt golf course Grantaire has ever been to (also the only, but he’s been on the internet). It’s been years since he last came here with Valjean and Cosette, yet the place looks entirely unchanged.

Éponine and Cosette have already started ahead to the equipment stand, and Grantaire follows after them in short time, surprised to see Enjolras falling in easily beside him.

“You play?” Grantaire asks, tucking his hands into his back pockets.

His not-date snorts. “Not recently enough to matter.”

“Good, so I’ll crush you with ease.”

“Oh? You do, then?”

“No, but I’m about to,” Grantaire grins. There’s a competitive spark alight in Enjolras’s eye, and Grantaire knows that things are about to get interesting.

They each pay for their respective equipment and scorecards before entering the course. The weather seems to be trying to make up for the last fake date’s rain, and it is doing a great job: the skies are so blue it nearly hurts Grantaire’s eyes, the breeze feels good, and the sun is warm on his skin and glinting gorgeously off of Enjolras’s golden ringlets. 

There’s no point in dwelling on that last point.

It quickly becomes apparent that the two of them are taking this game much more seriously than the other three: by the second hole, Enjolras has already argued over wind, both have cleared obstructions that don’t actually exist from their imagined putting path (he didn’t think Enjolras would sink to his level, but the boy certainly has the capability within him), and they’ve made three different equally pointless rules about walking on the green.

“Why don’t you guys go ahead of us?” Cosette suggests sweetly. She gives a couple of pointed glances in a very uncomfortable Marney’s direction.

“Hm?” Enjolras frowns. “Is something wrong?”

“We’re being too argumentative for them,” Grantaire explains, elbowing Enjolras lightly, “ _Dear_.”

The blond goes red. “I—I didn’t realize.”

“You’re good,” Éponine shrugs, smirking in a way that promises trouble. “Just go on, we’ll catch up eventually.”

Grantaire almost wants to decline just to see how this will play out, but he’s only winning by one swing right now, and he needs to be able to be as contrary as he wants without worrying about civility if he’s going to continue bluffing his way through this game. In any case, Éponine seems to have the situation under control. “You heard ‘em,” he tells Enjolras, nodding to the next set of obstacles. “Let’s go.”

They do, and by the time they’re starting the back nine Grantaire sees that the trio is still dawdling between five and six. For reasons Grantaire can only begin to speculate Éponine is giving Cosette a piggyback ride, and Marigold seems entirely lost. Grantaire snickers before turning back to the newest challenge (another windmill whose paint has nearly entirely chipped away). 

“What’re you laughing about?”

His scorecard raises, a bluff to avoid the real answer. “How much I’m beating you.”

Enjolras's eyebrows arch. “You realize the _lower_ score is the winner, right?”

He rolls his eyes. “I’m gay, I can’t math.”

Enjolras places his golf ball in position (exactly one inch behind the starting point, logo-up, as agreed upon) before arranging his putter. “So you are gay.” There’s a forced nonchalance there that Grantaire regards with caution.

“Bi, leaning heavily toward women. But yeah, I see no point living with one arm tied behind my back, and there are some _beautiful_ people in this world.”

“Hm.” Enjolras putts, and the ball goes wildly left, ricocheting rapidly between the enclosure.

Pulling out his scorecard, Grantaire cocks a smug eyebrow. “Three more of those, and I won’t have anything to worry about.” Enjolras scowls, but he’s the one who chose to hit within five seconds of Grantaire’s last words, so the blond can’t put the blame on him. 

“Yes yes, take your turn.”

The card and miniature pencil return to his back pocket as he lines up his shot. The straight ones like this, ironically, seem to be his strength, where Enjolras excels at the angled shots.

“You any good at pool?” he asks conversationally, knocking the ball firmly and accurately through the windmill’s tunnel. He doesn’t look up at the blond, instead following his ball to where it stops just short of the hole and blowing toward it for comedic effect.

(The 5th hole was when the “no breathing within four feet of your golf ball” rule had been instated.)

(By Grantaire.)

“Never really tried,” Enjolras admits as he postures himself for his next attempt. “Courfeyrac’s family has a pool table in their basement, but we were too short to play when we were interested and have always had better things to do now that that obstacle’s passed.”

Grantaire allows him quiet to properly make this hit. The ball bounces once against the inside of the tunnel, reappearing on the other side and nearly going into the hole...only to slow just enough to bump Grantaire’s in.

He gives a triumphant shout as Enjolras crumples over his putter in something between anguish and laughter. An entirely unwarranted urge to wrap his arms around the boy’s middle rises in him and is succinctly quashed before he clears his throat.

“I do believe it is your turn again.” 

 

Four holes and one new rule later (“There’s a difference between hitting the ball and dragging it, _Grantaire_.”), Enjolras seems interested in attempting banter that is not shittalking.

“So. How do you think it’s going?”

Grantaire carefully hits the ball, and as soon as it bounces off of the first wall he can see he doesn’t have enough momentum to get up the hill. “How do I think what’s going?”

“Their date.”

And yes, their double-date ruse is a secret, but Enjolras has eyes, a brain, and some common sense. “How do _you_ think it’s going?”

Shuffling his feet, Enjolras lines up his shot and hits an entirely different wall from the one Grantaire had attempted with significantly better results. “It looks like it’s going well.”

Well, he has eyes. “Then why ask me?” Grantaire asks, walking this way and that to see if there’s a practical way to stand without trying to swing in his nondominant direction. There really isn’t.

“You know Cosette better than I do. After all, I wasn’t expecting a second date after that first one, so something must have gone right.”

Grantaire misses the ball altogether.

“Right, talking, sorry.”

Grantaire makes contact the second time, managing to get his ball up to the second platform with Enjolras’s. He decides to pay close attention to the boy’s strategy this time.

In the back of his mind, though, he’s turning over Enjolras’s words, since it would seem Grantaire’s faith in the blond’s base-level intelligence isn’t altogether misplaced. In this hypothetical alternate world that Maven and Enjolras think they’re living in, what kind of person is Cosette to go on a second date despite being so obviously uncomfortable on the first one?

“Well,” Grantaire says once he’s lined up his shot the way he saw Enjolras do, “she doesn’t really talk to me about these things, so I don’t know what to tell you.”

He hits his ball with too much force this time: it hits the back wall of the third tier, rolling right over the hole but blessedly taking Enjolras’s back down with it. Grantaire manages to jump out of the way just in time not to affect the paths of either ball and groans when his returns all the way to the first tier.

Enjolras’s eyebrows furrow as he repeats his last shot, this time making it in. Fuck. “I mean,” he starts as Grantaire makes his way to the beginning, “she would say ‘no’ if she didn’t want to, wouldn’t she?”

Ah, there it is. Grantaire takes advantage of his imminent need to redo the entire hole, taking a full five more shots to do so and and losing him the lead he’d been tentatively holding.

As they continue to the 14th hole, Enjolras continues. “Marius isn’t the type to pressure people into things, after all. And I was there both times he asked her out—”

“Not the first,” Grantaire reminds him, because it matters.

“Not the first,” Enjolras acquiesces, “but even after the first date, I never saw him do or say anything that would make Cosette feel pressured. Especially not with _you_ beside her.”

Grantaire doesn’t bother dwelling on what that could mean. “There’s lots of types of pressures,” he shrugs. “Not everyone needs cornered at their car and told that declining means the end of women’s rights as we know it.”

He puts the golf ball down again. This one’s pretty straight-forward. Grantaire goes for the trick-shot, managing to get the most challenging tunnel that guarantees a hole-in-one and looking up at the now-frowning Enjolras with a wink.

“I did do that, didn’t I?”

“There were some other guilt tactics thrown in there as well, but yeah.” He steps off of the green to allow the underclassman his turn. “For what it’s worth, this entire shitshow has totally been worth the price of admission to witness live.”

Enjolras falters for a moment, looking up to Grantaire with a strange expression before turning back to his task.

He only manages the medium-difficulty shot. Three hits in total. Grantaire is catching up.

“Anyway, any idea what Marlowe sees in my sister? Like, she’s my baby sister, so obviously I simultaneously want to throw her off of a building and think she’s too good for anyone, but like. They don’t seem...to know each other? At all?” 

Enjolras stops in his tracks, face scrunched in confusion.

“Something wrong?”

“What who sees in your sister?”

“The kid you came here with? Scrawny, freckly, looks like he wears crocs with socks? Currently on a date with my sister?”

“Marius?”

“Yeah, that’s what I said. So what’s Marcus’s deal?”

Enjolras's huff might sound more disappointed if he wasn’t laughing through it. “ _Marius_ seems to think she’s the woman of his dreams.”

“Well yes, I’ve gathered as much, but to the best of my knowledge, before we split off however long ago I could count the number of sentences he’d exchanged with Cosette on two hands.”

“Ah, yes, well. There is that.”

Oh boy. A windmill with a pendulum attached. 

“Kids will be kids, I guess.”

He gets into position and only barely avoids having his ball knocked ajar by the moving part. Still several curves beyond here, but the hardest part is out of the way. Unlike their conversation, apparently.

“Marius turns eighteen in September,” Enjolras says rather pointedly.

“Oh wow, so he’s seventeen now?”

“Yes.”

“Kid,” Grantaire determines flatly, enjoying the red rising to Enjolras’s face. This is what makes arguing in person so much better than over text: he can imagine the boy’s frustration, but nothing matches seeing the irritation pinch and color his expression.

“Do you think Cosette, Éponine, and I are all kids as well?”

“Oh, _definitely_. Cosette is the babyest of course, even if she likes to say that she’s an ‘old sophomore,’ whatever that means. But each and every one of you: children, through and through.”

“So what, you think one year makes you that much more mature than me?”

Grantaire shrugs, enjoying the indignance at the perceived slight. “You’re putting your words in my mouth.”

“I’ll—” The blond bites back the rest of that sentence, whatever was supposed to follow, and somehow flushes even more deeply. “So what’s the difference then? In that one year between you and me?”

“Well for one thing, _my_ nudes are legal for distribution on the internet.” _What the fuck?_ Grantaire’s brain tailspins as he watches Enjolras’s blush deepen. _Why was_ that _his first response??_ “Also, I can buy scratch-offs, serve in the military, and vote. You know, really contribute to society.”

It takes another several moments, but Enjolras’s sputtering does come to an eventual slow. “Did you just equate _voting_ and _buying scratch-off cards?_ ”

Grantaire smiles sweetly. “I do believe it’s your turn?”

It takes Enjolras two times to get his ball through the obstacle, but it takes five times and a reminder that they’re not allowed to talk down on inanimate objects for them to finally continue to next set of obstacles. He’s four up on Enjolras now, and he has three holes to close that gap.

Enjolras begins his argument afresh on their walk, and Grantaire notes that the boy’s countenance looks decidedly less inflamed. “Ignoring that you think _participating in our country’s democratic legal system_ is as valuable as _occupying countries who do not want us there_ and _gambling_ , all of us will be of legal voting age before the next presidential election.”

“Oh cool, so in one to two Novembers y’all’ll be real adults,” Grantaire teases. Enjolras's jaw works at the jab, and Grantaire lets the kid sit on that while he figures out how the hell to get gravity to work in his favor. Steps? Really?

Enjolras and Grantaire both ultimately have to dig their golf balls from outside of the course after stray bounces and poor design land them both in the rocks. After eight failed attempts each, they agree to add a flat five and move on.

Meaning Grantaire is still up four with only two more chances to close the gap.

“Age doesn’t mean that we inherently aren’t worth considering.”

“You know, it’s sounding like you’re insinuating that I think adults are inherently better than children.”

“Don’t you?”

“No,” Grantaire states, pausing to meet Enjolras’s eyes. “Some adults are much, much worse than children,” he winks. He looks ahead at the next course and groans: nothing but slopes and sand traps.

“Want me to go first?” Enjolras offers.

“If you’d be so kind.”

It turns out that curves are harder to calculate than angles, and Grantaire manages to get two closer to eliminating their gap.

“Okay,” he announces dramatically, coming on their final hole. “The time is now, the moment of truth is here: who is truly the master of this putt-putt course?”

Enjolras raises his eyebrows before examining his scorecard. “Well, according to the par, we’re both pretty bad.”

“Shhhh, sh sh sh. Enjolras. We could be heroes, just for one day.”

Enjolras makes a face. “Are you quotin—”

“ _Shhhhhhhhhh_. Go, it’s your turn.”

The blond sighs: it’s a straight-shot, but there’s several moving objects. As long as Grantaire can make it in two shots fewer than Enjolras— 

Enjolras’s first shot lands the golf ball immediately next to the hole. Grinning impishly at Grantaire, he walks over and bumps it in.

Right. Well. Okay.

Before he can even process what he’s doing, Grantaire finds himself dropping his putter and phone to the ground and doing a two-footed take-off over the safety rail and into a water trap.

 

“Why do they even have water that deep?” Grantaire shudders, huddled in the spare set of sweats from his car as he exits the bathroom. “There is no reason for the water to be that deep. I was expecting knee-deep.”

Enjolras cocks an eyebrow at him as they walk back to Grantaire’s car. “You starfish-jumped. If it was knee-deep, you would have died.”

“American seppuku.”

That earns him a snort and an eyeroll. “Some adult you are,” he hears the blond mutter.

“I did say that some adults are worse than children.”

Enjolras had said he’d pass the news onto the trio while Grantaire changed so they’d know where to find the pair once they completed their rounds, but when Grantaire considers the hell he’ll catch if Cosette and Éponine find him in a dark car alone with Enjolras, it occurs to him that he’d rather catch hypothermia.

Besides, it’s a nice night out.

“Wanna sit in the trunk?” he offers. “I’m pretty sure Dad packed some spare pillows and blankets for eventualities, and I _know_ there’s food.” And money, a space heater, a tent, and anything else he’d ever need if he were to get lost in the wilderness for a week, basically; he’s not sure if Valjean sincerely has so little faith in him or what, but it’s definitely proved convenient on more than one occasion.

“I wouldn’t say ‘no’ to a blanket and a snack.”

“ _Sit by my side, and let the world slip: we shall ne'er be younger_ ,” he quotes dramatically, pulling out his keys with a crooked smile. He opens the back, and after a little maneuvering he’s able to locate some vegan crackers, a pack of kid-sized soymilks, and create just enough room for two spots cushioned by pillows. They settle into the space, a blanket wrapped around each of them.

“Y’know,” he says, slurping the last of his milkbox loudly through his straw, “this wasn’t as terrible as I’d anticipated.”

Enjolras rolls his eyes, but his mouth curls up into a slow smile. “The circumstances behind the sweatpants are slightly more acceptable this time around.”

He’s about launch into an unwieldy diatribe in defense of comfort clothing when the blond leans in, resting his head on Grantaire’s shoulder and effectively stealing his words. Like this, he can feel Enjolras’s warmth and the softness of his curls. There’s the slightest smell of whatever conditioner he’d used that morning, deodorant, and a hint of sweat, and Grantaire desperately hopes that the boy beside him can’t feel the shift in his breathing or the involuntary gulp he forces down.

_Where the fuck are those three?_

There’s no one else around, no risk of being caught not dating...but perhaps he doesn’t realize that Éponine and Cosette know? From what he now knows of the Mysterious Life of Merriweather, it seems entirely possible that Enjolras’s freckled associate is blissfully unaware of the arrangement as well.

He considers telling Enjolras that the girls are in on the agreement, that he doesn’t need to worry about them, but the consequences he runs through are 1) Enjolras thinks Cosette wanted Grantaire to fake-date Enjolras so she could date Mavis (a thing Enjolras apparently thinks she totally wants to do), or 2) Enjolras finds the whole nature of the arrangement to be suspicious and discovers them.

(Both of these are also inextricably linked to Enjolras moving away, and Grantaire has only just stopped shivering.)

So he lets it ride as they watch the sun sink lower in the sky until the others finally appear. Smug glances from the girls tell him that he’s going to catch hell for this as soon as their company parts ways from them, and he rolls his eyes in reluctant acknowledgment.

“Do we want to try for dinner?” Mackerel asks the car at large once they’ve all settled in.

Éponine continues to be a blessing to everyone except the person she was intended to help. “Actually, Mr. Valjean is expecting us home for dinner.” She’s managed to claim the middle seat again and seems quite proud of this.

He can tell from the way Enjolras’s face scrunches at the name that a question is coming. “‘Mr. Valjean’? Is that R and Cosette’s dad?”

“The one and only,” Grantaire responds as he turns the key in the ignition.

“How come everyone in your family has different last names?”

“Papa’s adopted,” Cosette explains coquettishly in that way she does every time their unusual family structure is questioned. 

He barely stifles his snort, but it does look like Enjolras has completed his interrogation. “So, who won?” Grantaire asks the trio.

“Marius trounced us,” Éponine announces, not sounding particularly torn up over it. 

“To be fair, you started treating your putter like a pool stick after the front nine,” Cosette points out.

“And I did better for it!”

In the mirror Myriel smiles at the girls’ joviality, and Grantaire narrows his eyes at the reflection before pulling out of the lot.

 

The school parking lot is nearly dark by the time they pull in today and let Merino and Enjolras out. Grantaire is sorely, _sorely_ tempted to drop them off without getting out of the car, but Cosette and Éponine take that option off of the table with their own disembarkment. Remaining alone in the car for a moment, he sighs to himself before unbuckling his seatbelt and following their lead.

What does he even do now? Even though they’d agreed it was okay, hugging still feels weirdly intimate, especially with no one around who matters. But they’d also, what, cuddled? And he has no idea where that leaves them now.

Fortunately, Enjolras seems to be struggling through the same predicament. Beside them, the others talk.

“Thanks for inviting me along, this was a lot of fun!” Éponine grins, an arm wrapped possessively around Cosette. 

“I’m glad you could come,” the boy responds, his smile looking a bit weaker.

“Putt-putt golf was such a great idea,” Cosette adds, leaning into Éponine. He doesn’t know if they agreed to play this up or not, but surely Marshall isn’t _this_ daft.

“Maybe we can do it again sometime?” he offers instead, infuriatingly starry-eyed.

 _Nooooooooo_ , Grantaire groans internally. He suspects it might manifest itself externally just a little because Cosette gives him a quick, uncertain glance from beside him before returning to attention to the freckled disaster in front of her. 

“We’ll be pretty busy for a while,” Éponine answers. “Finals are coming up and all, you know what the end of the year is like.”

“Oh, yeah. Right. Maybe after that, then? Or, um. You know, I know this great sailing place that opens next month, maybe we could—”

“Maybe,” Éponine interrupts, “but probably not.”

Cosette gives him a smile, and Gods is Grantaire grateful to have Éponine there. This might even make up for all of the teasing he anticipates in his imminent future.

Grantaire looks back at his own not-date. “Enjolras,” he nods, a crooked grin forming. 

“Grantaire.” There’s a warm finality in the exchange, a business transaction they’re both satisfied with.

Grantaire waits a beat to see if anyone has anything to add. “Safe travels,” he says, turning to open his car door.

“You too,” the boys offer in unison. Pausing, Grantaire throws a confused look behind him to see Enjolras shoving his hands into his pockets and looking down. _Cute._

He allows himself into the car, pushing the thought out of his mind as the girls settle into the back seat.

“You are _mean_ ,” Grantaire tells Éponine as he starts the car up. “Remind me never to get on your bad side.”

“Oh shush,” she tells him. “He barely even noticed.”

“He noticed enough that I don’t think you’re invited on any future dates.”

“Hopefully neither is Cosette.”

“It was fun,” Cosette protests. “Marius is nice in his own right.”

“Of course he is, he’s _Marius_. There’s a reason I had a crush on him until Sophomore year.”

Grantaire sputters, glad to be stopped at a light so he can crane around to look at the girl. “ _Freckles?_ ”

Éponine shrugs. “My experience with nice people was limited to the church-goers my parents swindle for sport, and he was in my reading group. And anyway, you have no leg to stand on: what was going on when we got out from Mini-Golf Twilight Zone?

Grantaire sniffs, sweeping into a left turn. “As you may have heard, there was An Incident.”

“Yeah yeah, Wonderbread told us all about it—”

“Really? Between the two of them, _Enjolras_ is Wonderbread?”

“Fair.”

“But still doesn’t answer the question of _why_ you were looking so cozy with him,” Cosette intervenes, a long-suffering veteran of his avoidance strategies.

“I was damp, it was cold, and he leaned on me.”

“Right,” Éponine responds flatly, “and you just happened not to pull away.”

“Look, I haven’t told him that you know about our fake-dating, and I actually don’t think Marsden realizes either. I didn’t wanna risk being found out.”

Cosette hums behind him. “A truly noble sacrifice.”

He ignores the sarcasm delicately laced through the words. “Thank you.” 

There’s a polite pause. “So when’re you gonna ask him out?”

The gentle glide to the stop sign become a sudden halt. “What?”

“Cosette can’t keep this up forever,” Éponine explains, “and, as you’ve already observed, I’m disinvited to any future events.”

Grantaire scoffs. “He’s good company through these things, I’ll give you that, but proper dating? I don’t see it.”

“Funny, everyone else can,” Éponine offers with a waggle of her eyebrows.

“Everyone else needs their eyes checked.” He pulls into Éponine’s neighborhood. “Just Gavroche, or are we also getting Azelma?”

“Pretty sure Zelma’s fucked off to do her own thing this weekend.”

“Wanna text her and check?”

There’s a long silence before the quiet answer comes. “Yeah.”

Gavroche is already waiting outside when he pulls up, sitting on the curb and poking a stick in a storm grate. 

“Hey Kiddo,” he greets as Gavroche climbs into the front seat. “Seatbelts.”

Gavroche rolls his eyes as he buckles in. “What’re we having for dinner?”

“No idea.”

“You see Zelma before you headed out?” Éponine asks. “She’s not picking up.”

“I think she went out with those guys she’s been hanging out with again.”

Grantaire can feel the girl quietly seething and knows that, in her mind, Azelma’s new friends are only a half-step up from her parents. “Well, guess we don’t need to worry about making room, then.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Western breakfast as we know it is capitalist propaganda, [change my mind](https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2016/nov/28/breakfast-health-america-kellog-food-lifestyle).


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Warnings:** strong incentive to eat the rich, mention of minor character death via pregnancy difficulties
> 
> "SNAP" stands for Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program and is America's food stamps program.

Marius had told Enjolras he’d had something big planned for Wednesday, but this is not even remotely the scale Enjolras had imagined.

“Any idea what all of this is about?” a voice asks to his left. Enjolras looks over to see Grantaire settling down beside him in the bleachers, Cosette and Éponine on the other side of the man.

“One,” Enjolras admits, “but I really hope I’m wrong about it.”

Over the loudspeaker, microphone feedback squeals before a gentle voice begins. “ _You’re just too good to be true…_ ”

Enjolras looks back over the people beside him, mortified.

“ _Can’t take my eyes off of you. You’d be like heaven to touch, I wanna hold you so much._ ”

“He didn’t tell me about this part,” Enjolras tells Grantaire. Beside him, Cosette looks panicked, and Éponine’s jaw is dropped.

“ _At long last love has arrived, and I thank God that I’m alive. You’re just too good to be true, can’t take my eyes off of you._ ”

“Well,” Grantaire whispers, leaning back on the seats behind them, “at least he has a nice voice, otherwise this might have been _really_ awkward.”

Then the marching band comes in.

“And yet."

Enjolras buries his face in his hands. It’s not that Marius isn’t doing an incredible job—he’s actually rather stupendous, and Enjolras hasn’t seen the man perform anything this confidently since the French history report he delivered last month _in French_. But on the car ride home last Friday, Enjolras had politely broached the topic that, perhaps, Cosette isn’t interested in him, and when Marius had suggested a Promposal as his final effort to woo her _this is exactly what Enjolras had coached him against_.

 _There’s lots of types of pressures_ , Grantaire had said. And here he is, playing party to one. There’s no way Cosette wants to do this. Surely she still needs Grantaire to accompany her to Prom, maybe if Enjolras declines to attend with Grantaire she’ll have her excuse? He hadn’t been overly intent on going and playing into commercialized American high school cultural standards anyway.

The thought makes him twinge, a new side effect of his coming to terms with that Courfeyrac’s teasing over Grantaire might not be as baseless as he’d once presumed. As a junior, he could attend without a senior date if he truly felt so inclined, but to have an excuse to talk and even dance with the man through the night…

Well, it wouldn’t be fair to take advantage of the situation anyway. But also he hadn’t pulled away when Enjolras had leaned into him on their outing last Friday. They’ve continued texting every day since as well, and Enjolras wants to believe that it’s not only out of a sense of obligation. 

By some miracle, Marius makes it through his entire number without incident (well, no more than intended, Enjolras presumes), and a round of applause goes up around the stadium from other students who had gathered from their drop-offs to listen. On the other side of the field, Marius is visibly bright red, and Enjolras can make out Courfeyrac approaching the freckled man and directing him in their direction.

Grantaire rises from beside Enjolras, and Enjolras has no idea when to expect when the dark-haired man makes his way toward Marius. Apparently Marius doesn’t either, and Enjolras hears his squeak as Grantaire wraps him into a bear-hug. 

“You did great, Buddy,” he hears Grantaire tell Marius with a clap to the back, keeping an arm over the slight man’s shoulder and pushing him forward.

“So, uh, Cosette,” Marius says, fiddling his fingers. “What do you say? Will you go to Prom with me?”

Enjolras’s stomach clenches, anticipating the worst. 

“I’m so sorry,” he hears instead, “but I’m actually going with someone else.”

Enjolras turns to gawk at Cosette, smiling prettily down at the man.

“Better luck next time,” Grantaire follows with a pat on the back before moving back up to retrieve the backpack he’d abandoned between Cosette and Enjolras.

“Ah. Right.” Marius looks like he’s going to cry, and Enjolras is frozen in place with the desire to do something to fix the situation. 

Suddenly, Courfeyrac appears from crowd mulling behind the freckled man. He looks excitedly to Enjolras, who shakes his head. Courfeyrac’s expression falls, and he carefully approaches Marius. “Hey man, we’ve gotta get to first period. Wanna walk with me?”

Marius gives a shaky nod. “Um, well, thank you anyway,” he says to Cosette, and despite everything Enjolras’s heart does go out to him. 

When Marius and Courfeyrac are out of sight, Cosette turns to Enjolras. “My brother still needs to also have a date for me to go,” she says loudly enough for Grantaire to hear at the bottom of the bleachers.

“Oh, right.” The man turns back to look up at Enjolras. “Wanna go to Prom with me?”

Enjolras’s stomach twists with excitement, but he tries not to let it show. “If it’s in the name of tearing down the patriarchy, do I have a choice?”

 

According to Courfeyrac, Marius will recover eventually. Probably.

Seems a bit dramatic to Enjolras, but then, he’s the one continuing to fake-date the older brother of the girl who broke Marius’s heart. So.

“That’s how he asked you? Are you fucking shitting me?” 

“ _Courfeyrac_ ,” hisses Combeferre just as a matronly-looking lunch aid passes behind them.

“Oh please, Melinda swears like a sailor, she doesn’t care. You know who does care? Me. About this,” Courfeyrac says, finger making circles in the air around Enjolras’s face.

Enjolras his eyes and leans back in his chair, crossing his arms. “It’s just because of their dad.” 

“Yeah. Okay. Well, I refuse to allow two of my best friends to get their hearts broken at the same Prom—and by the same family, no less.”

“It’s not like that,” Enjolras insists, despite it being exactly like that. He doesn’t need his friends worrying over him as well, he just needs to talk himself out of...whatever this is. Which, clearly, going to Prom with the object of his affections is totally the course of action to take to accomplish this.

Combeferre is narrowing his eyes at something behind Enjolras. “Grantaire doesn’t have this lunch period, does he?”

“The one before this,” Courfeyrac says with a mouthful of pizza and confidence that belies the untold boundaries crossed to uncover this information.

“Any idea why he’s here, then?”

Enjolras turns to see the man in question standing on the upper level of the lunchroom as if about to make a speech wearing, of all things, a collared shirt. His suspicions are further confirmed when a student with a shaved head presses a megaphone into Grantaire’s hand, whispering something into his ear before pulling anyway. Grantaire scans the lunchroom before his eyes fall on Enjolras and he gives a wink.

None of the lunch aids seem concerned, and the only teacher who appears to have taken notice of the events unfurling before them has taken a seat, legs crossed as she watches with interest. 

“In America, the poverty level for a family of four is $25,100.”

There a pause, during which time those who hadn’t heeded the suspicious proceedings with silence finally take the cue to quiet down. 

“In Pierce County, the median household income is $69,278, but if you take the average for the top 1% in 2015 and compare it to the average for the other 99% you’ll realize very quickly that we’re comparing $734,435 per annum to $52,731.

“For reference: a family of four is SNAP-eligible at $50,200.”

If the cafeteria hadn’t been quiet before, it’s dead-silent now, everyone’s attention fully on the man with the megaphone.

“13.2% of Pierce County’s 821,300 residents struggle with food insecurity. That’s 111,260 people. Only 68% of those people are eligible for SNAP, meaning that the other 35,600 people living with food insecurity at over the 200% poverty level are left to suck it up.

“In the state of Washington, child food insecurity is at 17.3%, just barely higher than the national average. Every month, 39% of the 111,000 people who struggle with food insecurity are kids. Moreover, 63% of the kids in the Tacoma school district are eligible for free and reduced-price meals, meaning that they come from households making 185% of the poverty level or under.

“In this lunch period alone, 23 students have maxed out the money that they’re allowed to owe. 23, out of 284. 8% of this room not only can’t afford to purchase lunch, but aren’t allowed to.”

A voice from another corner of the cafeteria rings clear. It’s hard to see them at first, but soon a circle has formed around a person in a wheelchair. “In addition to affecting physical and mental development, the CDC has also found strong correlations between hunger and inability to focus on tasks at hand. In a recent anonymous survey, 60% of students at Padua High reported lunch being their first opportunity to eat in the day, 30% of students reported it was the only meal they would eat in a day, and 40% of those students reported having missed lunch despite this to make up assignment and tests or because their accounts were in deficit—missing school because they didn’t eat, since hunger weakens the immune system, then not eating because they missed school. Padua High has the opportunity to offer a Student Breakfast Program, which the government provides subsidies and refunds for, and elects not to.”

“Last year 4% of qualifying seniors—eight students—couldn’t graduate, not because their grades were too low but because they were _poor_ ,” the man who had handed Grantaire the megaphone before announces from another side of the cafeteria. “A local business, Montreuil-sur-Mer Crafts, offered to provide money to pay off not only the debt for these seniors but cancel out all student lunch debt, and Principal Javert _declined_ their no strings attached offer, proving that it’s not about the money but widening the wage- and class-gap.” The words are vindictive and passionate. “Our school has one of the worst dropout rates in the state—last year’s graduating class started 301 students strong in 2014 and ended 2018 with only 198, _30%_. It’s not because these kids are unmotivated: a poll conducted by the Padua High administration itself determined that over 95% of these drop-outs were due to monetary stress and food insecurity. Compare this with the national average of 13% and the county average of 9%.” 

“And this is why we call you here today, final lunch period of Padua, for a sit-in protest!” Grantaire declares, all eyes returning to him. “Freedom from hunger should not be a privilege reserved for the upper class! And until Padua High and its administration stop preying on the most vulnerable of society for its own means, we will not back down!”

“Clear student lunch debt!” cries the seated person. “Let everyone graduate!”

“Eat the rich!” follows the third.

A chant of “Eat the rich! Eat the rich!” rises in the room, accompanied by pounding and stomping. 

Through all of this, Enjolras has been absolutely speechless.

“Now this is more like it,” Courfeyrac says, grinning from ear to ear across the table.

“What?” Enjolras asks. He’s blushing, why is he blushing? Yes, it’s nice to see Grantaire taking a stand and doing something for the common good, and he has a really nice voice for speeches and said his part very well and _oh no, is he actually attracted to Grantaire being principled??_

“Definitely a step up from the _‘Wanna go to Prom with me?’_ bullshit you were telling me about before.”

Enjolras is still confused, and Courfeyrac sighs.

“It’s a Promposal, Enjolras. This is Grantaire asking you to go to Prom with him.”

His brains stutters. “Sit-ins are _not_ Promposals.”

Combeferre’s brow furrows. “I thought you said he didn’t care about free and reduced lunch.”

“He doesn’t! I mean, he didn’t.” Enjolras turns back to look at where Grantaire continues his chant. One of the school officers approaches him, and even of the roar of the room Enjolras can hear the man calmly asserting his rights and warning of the legal consequences of unnecessary force against him.

“I told you it was flirting,” Courfeyrac whispers loudly, and this time Enjolras doesn’t have a response.

 

—-

 

Detention for the rest of the year, and he’s not allowed to walk at graduation. The principal has also arranged a parent-meeting with Valjean tomorrow, but given his dad’s feelings on poverty and hunger Grantaire has a feeling Javert is going to find himself utterly unimpressed.

Joly and Bossuet seem to be facing similar consequences, though Grantaire suspects that if Valjean can get his punishment overturned they might be able to get their sentences reduced or altogether cleared as well. 

Detention is filled with the usual crowd, plus Joly and Bossuet; the three of them have been pointedly arranged by Ms. Victurnien to be seated as far from one another as possible. It’s no big deal: this isn’t exactly Grantaire’s first detention, and an hour of neglecting homework in favor of reading is hardly torturous. Still, when a carefully folded triangle of paper whizzes over his shoulder not five minutes into the hour, he’s underwhelmed.

He knocks it to the floor, ignoring the huff he hears sound behind him. Then, he feels a kick against his chair. If they’re hoping for their paper football back, they’re shit out of luck: some people have to learn the hard way to bring better forms of entertainment to detention, and whoever is seated behind him is one of today’s unlucky ten thousand.

Unfortunately for Grantaire, whoever is behind him is slightly more motivated than the average freshman. The kicking continues, harder and harder until he finally turns, fully prepared to flip the asshole’s desk.

Instead, he finds himself face to face with Enjolras. 

“What are—”

“Mr. Grantaire, I trust I don’t need to remind you to remain facing forward and silent in detention?”

He thinks about ignoring her—What’s she going to do, give him more detention? Upgrade his existing detentions to suspensions? What a burden—but he reminds himself that Enjolras still has another year at Padua and plenty of opportunities to suffer in his place. Instead, he turns back ahead, writing his missive on a sheet of notebook paper and praying that the blond doesn’t decide to take up his Irish river dancing rehearsal on the back of Grantaire’s chair again in the meantime. 

_What are you doing here?_

He tears it out, folding the sheet neatly and holding it back without turning. He feels Enjolras’s fingers brush against his as the note is retrieved and tries to ignore the rush the sensation gives him.

A minute later, he feels a brush against his upper arm and reaches over with his opposite hand to accept the response. 

_Victurnien decided that any sort of in-school demonstration is clearly the result of my “underground leadership.” I’m rather flattered._

Grantaire snorts, scribbling his response and passing it back.

_You would be._

Several minutes pass without interruption, and Grantaire assumes their conversation is finished until he feels another brush.

_I know you and your friends were escorted out pretty much as soon as Javert announced that he would agree to your terms, but some students uploaded videos of the strike onto Facebook and Instagram, and the local news outlets got a hold of it. Apparently the office is getting a lot of calls and emails from the community about it, and there’s talk of more infrastructural changes being made. This might be the beginning of a much bigger movement._

Grantaire blinks at the note.

_Cool._

He hears a sigh that indicates his message has been received.

_I’m not arguing with you over this right now. The answer is “yes,” by the way._

No force on earth can make Grantaire volunteer information that he doesn’t want to.

_? To what?_

This time the note is thrown over his shoulder.

_Prom. I know I said it before, but it’s still “yes.”_

Grantaire smothers the excitement that rises in his chest as he responds.

_Oh? You don’t believe that I’ve become deeply invested in our country’s school lunch program and committed to improving it for generations to come?_

The note taps twice on his arm.

_Should I? Did I win you over?_

_Not a singular chance in hell. When is this thing, anyway?_

 

“So, what’re your post-detention plans?” Grantaire asks once Ms. Victurnien dismisses them.

The blond looks up at him in evident surprise. “Um, catching the late bus home I guess. Why?”

“Ép and Cosette got picked up by Fantine to get some Prom fittings done.” He debates elaborating, but he doesn’t even know where he’d begin. ‘And I’m free if you wanna hang out?’ ‘And I need to make sure you know that I still think this lunch debt this is a waste of effort, even if you think a few news outlets picking it up will make a difference?’ ‘And I want to know if you really do realize that I’m not just asking you to Prom as a formality?’

“Is this your way of asking if I’d like to spend time with you?”

Grantaire rolls his eyes, slinging his backpack over his shoulder and reaching up to rub his neck. “If you want it to be.”

Enjolras is evaluating him, and really, Grantaire should have just been direct in the first place so he could avoid this whole routine. “What would we do?”

Grantaire thinks for a moment. “You hungry?”

 

As it would turn out, he is. Since Mark’s failure of a first date, Grantaire has had a place tucked in the back of his mind that he’s been thinking would have been nice to go to instead were they ever to repeat the entire endeavor. Well, a place to take Enjolras, if he’s being perfectly honest with himself, which he makes a habit of avoiding.

He pulls up to the stand and gets out of the car, relieved to see Enjolras following without his normal barrage of questions.

“This is a burger shack,” Enjolras observes dryly.

“Ah, but that is where you are wrong, my friend: it is merely disguised as a burger shack.”

Enjolras appears to give the place a thorough look-over before narrowing his eyes at Grantaire. “What is it, then, that is being disguised?”

Grantaire takes a seat at a stool up at the bar before turning to answer. “Why don’t you look at the menu and find out?”

For a moment he worries that the blond is fed up with his cryptic answers, but Enjolras does eventually pull up a seat beside Grantaire and raises his hand for a menu. A response comes quickly, and Alex grins at Grantaire from behind the counter. “Your usual?” 

“Yeah, but hold off on starting it until my friend’s had a chance to check out the options,” Grantaire says, tipping his head toward Enjolras. Something about the description feels wrong—they’re slightly more than friends, he thinks—but in the middle of ordering seems like the wrong time to tackle such a philosophical question. Instead he leans over the bar with an unsubtle wink. “It’s his first time.” 

“Sure thing.”

“How are the vegan options marked?” Enjolras asks, peering through the menu.

Alex gives a laugh. “Grantaire, you’re an ass.” They turn back to Enjolras. “If it’s on the menu, it’s vegan. That’s kind of our shtick here.”

Enjolras’s brows disappear into his hairline. His eyes dart back at the menu, furtively flipping through pages. A minute later, Grantaire hears Enjolras rattle off an order that seems like far more than someone his size would ever be able to finish by himself. Alex scribbles it down nevertheless and heads back into the kitchen to do whatever it is that gets done back there. Grantaire’s fairly certain magic is involved, but he hasn’t quite confirmed the suspicion yet.

“No side salads today?”

“On a menu with more available options than can be counted on one hand?”

Grantaire nods. “I’m pretty sure there’s an ordinance somewhere out there against ordering salads at a burger joint anyway, so I’d say you’ve made the right decision.”

There’s a beat of silence between them. “So,” Enjolras starts, “I take it you come here often?”

Grantaire grins in amusement. “Is that some kind of pick-up line?”

Enjolras fixes him with a decidedly unamused look. “You have a usual order.”

“Alex seems to think so,” Grantaire allows. “Why were you really in detention today?”

Enjolras shakes his head. “I told you, Ms. Victurnien—”

“You expect me to believe you went down without a fight? Enjolras, please, even the most swoonworthy of praise wouldn’t shake you.”

The boy shrugs, though Grantaire thinks he notes flush spreading across the blond’s face. “I’ve had detention enough times that it isn’t exactly a black mark on my record,” he reasons, “and Courf accepted on my behalf.”

“Pretty sure that’s not how these things work.”

“You’ve clearly never met Courf.”

“Clearly.”

Alex comes back out with a root beer float for Grantaire and some sort of milkshake for Enjolras, sliding the drinks to them with an innocent smile that Grantaire is fairly certain contains less-innocent conjectures.

Sitting at the bar was a mistake: he’d chosen it under the assumption that it would feel less intimate than one of the two-person tables in the window, and he’d been horribly wrong: like this, turned in toward each other with their knees knocking together and their heads startling close as they lean over their drinks, Grantaire can almost believe that they’re on a date. Which...are they?

He’s pretty sure they’re not, but his internal debate over the semantics of the situation are interrupted by an insistent Enjolras. “You still owe me an explanation.”

Grantaire pulls away from his straw. “Do I now? About what?”

There’s any number of questions that this could refer to, and right now he doesn’t have answers to many of them. Fortunately, Enjolras chooses the easiest of them. “Who is Fantine to you? She didn’t seem like she was just a neighbor.”

Grantaire stirs his metal straw in the foam of his float, hoping he doesn’t seem too openly relieved. “Right. Well, as you might have guessed by now, Cosette and I are adopted.”

Enjolras nods.

“We _are_ blood-relatives, though, and Fantine _is_ her mom.” Now that the initial relief has passed, Grantaire worries the inside of his cheek over how to tell the rest of the story. “My mom was Fantine’s sister. She met a guy—my father—who sponsored her Visa to come over from the Dominican. They got married, Mom got pregnant, and soon she was able to sponsor Fantine to come join her. 

“I was sort of a miracle child, I guess. Mom kept having issues with carrying her pregnancies to term, and she died before I was two from complications relating to that. _Father_ decided he wasn’t really interested in me without my mom and passed me off to Fantine, who was also pregnant by some, and I quote, ‘deadbeat Keats-wannabe living off of his politician-daddy’s fortune.’”

“Fantine has a way with words.”

“Doesn’t she? Anyway, she’s already freaking out over her own pregnancy, and suddenly she has me thrust upon her too. Still in school, mind you, and working at the same time to try to make ends meet. So she passes out on the way to work one day, and Valjean’s there when she comes to. Naturally, she panics because a hospital bill on top of everything else is _a lot_ , and after hearing about everything he tells her that he’s covering her medical expenses and tuition, and basically extends an open invitation for adopting us.

“In hindsight, she was entirely too trusting, but it worked out. She’s always been a part of our lives, and Valjean’s always been really good to us.”

Enjolras nods slowly, which is probably the best possible outcome given the circumstances. “So you don’t feel bothered by the dating stipulation because...you feel like you owe him?”

Back to this. Of course, because that’s all this is about to Enjolras. He tries not to openly wince. “Sure.”

Enjolras seems to turn this over in his head as he sips his drink.

“And what about you? What do your parents and friends think of this? Have you told them?”

The blond swallows his drink before speaking, wiping his mouth as he does. “They all know.”

Grantaire raises his eyebrows. “Martini knows?”

Apparently Enjolras has accepted that correcting him is a lost cause. “No, but my other friends do, and my parents. My parents think it’s a bit odd, but they always support my decisions even when they don’t understand. Encourage me to think about my motivation and reasons, but ultimately I think they know that I’m going to do whatever I set my mind to, so they’ve made their peace with just trying to get me to do so responsibly.” Grantaire nods, already thinking over how the conversation with Valjean this evening about the protest will go. “And you? Have you told anyone? Cosette, I assume.”

“Cosette and Éponine, yeah. Not Valjean or Fantine, obviously,” more to avoid being guilted into owning up to his and Cosette’s mistakes than what Enjolras likely has in mind, “and it just hasn’t really come up with the others.”

“What did you tell your friends about today, then?”

“Just called in a favor. My friends aren’t really the type who ask questions. And anyway, I helped them with their Promposal, so...”

“So it only makes sense that they’d help you with yours.”

“Exactly.” He’s already leaning into his drink before he realizes the verbal snare he’s been caught in. “Wait, no—”

“It _was_ a Promposal!” Enjolras accuses, smug in his triumph.

Grantaire huffs, smiling despite himself. “It might have been.”

They sit in silence a beat. “What made you decide on a protest?”

He rubs his hand over his neck. “Cosette was giving me a hard time over it, and I figured you’d hate spectacle for spectacle’s sake.” He had debated doing something smaller and more private, but he’d had no way of knowing how that might be received. A larger, more ambiguous gesture had seemed safer, though Enjolras’s insistence on interpreting it as a Promposal seems to validate his suspicions that the blond might be open to extending their current arrangement to something more sincere. “In any case, seems like it worked.”

Enjolras’s mouth opens, face already coloring, but before he can answer Alex reappears with three of the blond’s appetizers. The boy gapes at them.

“Something wrong?” Grantaire asks once Alex is out of earshot.

“This...is a lot of food.”

“I could take some of that off your hands for you,” he jokes with a wink.

“Would you?” Enjolras looks more than a little bashful at the admission. “I know I won’t be able to finish this and a burger.”

Grantaire grins. “You know my feelings on food waste.” 

Enjolras narrows his eyes. “I don’t. If I recall correctly, you held five different positions before moving on to pollution.”

“Then you’ll do well to remember that one of those positions was that _it’s a sin_.” Grantaire begins digging into the loaded potato skins, and _damn_ , how has he never bothered with these before now?

“I think,” Enjolras says several minutes later, punctuating the statement with a sip of milkshake, “that the burger could be a literal pile of dirt, and this would still be my new favorite place to eat.”

“If it’s any sort of reassurance, that shouldn’t be the case.” Grantaire debates wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, but his brain reminds him that Enjolras is watching, so instead he identifies a nearby table with a napkin holder he can commandeer and retrieves it.

Enjolras watches his return, making careful eye contact as he withdraws a 100% recycled napkin and wipes it over his mouth. He’s either preparing to say something or he’s not, and Grantaire can’t decide which is more intimidating.

“Can I ask what’s going on with Éponine?”

There’s many things to which this can be referring, and Grantaire plans to volunteer information about zero of them. “What do you mean?” 

The blond shrugs. “She just seems to hang around a lot.”

“Tends to come with the territory of being the closest non-familial person in Cosette’s life.” 

“Just Cosette’s, then?”

“I mean, all of us, I guess.” Grantaire picks at one of the last remaining baked ravioli in the basket, trying to puzzle through why Enjolras won’t meet his eyes all of the sudden. Recognition dawns on him. “But mostly Cosette. Éponine’s basically family to me.”

Enjolras looks up, making tentative eye-contact and looking very nearly hopeful as Alex comes out with their main orders. “Yeah?”

“Definitely,” Grantaire confirms with a nod. 

They thank Alex profusely, and despite that Enjolras had still downed far more of the appetizers than Grantaire had anticipated, the boy’s face alights at the latest installment. 

“By the way,” Enjolras says several bites into his sandwich, “I also meant to ask: why do Éponine and her brother stay with you guys?”

Grantaire freezes, carefully chewing the mouthful of burger currently in his mouth before answering. “What do you mean?”

“Courf’s family knows some people who attend the church that her parents run, and I guess she and her brother are never there? You’ve mentioned them being over a couple of times, and I see you take her to school pretty frequently, so I just figured...” It’s one of those out-of-bounds questions, and Enjolras seems to realize it as the silence stretches on. “I wasn’t asking around or anything,” the blond adds, panic audibly rising in his voice, and this also is not what Grantaire wanted.

“It’s cool,” he says, even though it very much borders on ‘not-cool.’ “Éponine…she’s a special friend to the family.” He shrugs. “That’s really all I can say on the subject. Though I’d prefer you staying mum on the topic of where she spends her time if anyone brings it up to you again.”

Enjolras nods in quiet understanding before returning to his sandwich with slightly less vigor than before, and Grantaire curses the circumstances behind their meeting.

 

Enjolras, as it turns out, is terrible with directions, to the point where Grantaire needs to return to the school for him to be able to map out the route he knows to and from his friend’s house. The blond swears that he’d forgotten his plans to meet with aforementioned friend, but Grantaire strongly suspects that Enjolras doesn’t know how to get home. Or maybe he just doesn’t want to let Grantaire see his home?

No, that seems unlikely.

Probably.

He’s definitely not running through why it’s borderline predatory to be flirting with a high schooler when he’s going to be graduating so soon when he pulls up to a house that Enjolras seems confident is the one he wants. Grantaire thinks it looks just about identical to half of the other houses they’ve passed already, but the junior seems really certain about this one, and the giggling preteen in a Barbie Jeep pulling around the house does look rather distinct.

Enjolras turns to look at Grantaire, and _fuck_ , he hasn’t gotten this far in his plan (which totally exists and is not being invented as he goes). 

“This was really nice,” Enjolras smiles.

“Was it _fun?_ ” he asks sardonically, immediately kicking himself for potentially ruining a moment with his sarcasm.

Enjolras seems to pick up on it though, leaning in slightly with a coy smile. “That depends: if I ask if you would want to do it again, would your answer be ‘maybe’?”

“ _Maybe_ ,” Grantaire teases, feeling himself hovering closer to the blond. There’s something magnetic drawing him nearer, and Enjolras’s half-lidded eyes and slightly parted lips aren’t doing much to dissuade him.

He can practically feel a golden curl brushing his forehead when the sound of a car door opening makes them jump apart. Grantaire’s heart seems to have simultaneously migrated to his skull and stomach, and he hasn’t felt this awkward since Valjean walked in on him making out with his second girlfriend.

“Enj! Emilio said he thought he saw you out here!”

Grantaire forces his hands off of the steering wheel where they had flown, leaning back to he can try to look at Enjolras’s friend without it being too obvious that he wants to perish where he sits. It’s the one who had comforted Marker after the flopped Promposal; he seems rather pleased with himself, where Enjolras’s expression is formed into an undeniable scowl. Seeing the latter’s stormy expression somehow revives Grantaire’s cheer.

“I’m afraid we haven’t been introduced. Grantaire,” he says, offering a hand over Enjolras’s lap.

Enjolras’s friend appears delighted with this reaction. “Courfeyrac,” he responds, accepting the shake, “but you can call me ‘Courf.’”

Grantaire’s eyebrows raise in understanding as he withdraws his hand. “I’ve heard a lot about you.”

“All good things, I’m sure,” Courfeyrac winks.

“Oh, I wouldn’t be if I were you,” he grins. He didn’t think it was possible for Courfeyrac to appear more elated, and suddenly he understands how Enjolras might have had detention accepted on his behalf.

“It was wonderful meeting you, but I really must be collecting my son now,” he says cheerfully, leaning over Enjolras to unbuckle the blond’s seatbelt for him. 

“I’m older than you,” Enjolras grumbles.

“And still can’t find your way home from anywhere that isn’t my house or Ferre’s. _Vamos, Chiquito._ ”

Enjolras reddens as he’s tugged out of the vehicle, and Grantaire tries and fails horribly to stifle his laughter at the comment. He collects himself enough to school his expression into something nearly neutral. “Enjolras,” he nods.

“Grantaire,” the blond responds with a shy smile.

“Courfeyrac!” the third shouts, punctuating his exclamation with the slam of the car door.

Grantaire watches the two walk up to the front door before pulling away, the brunet jabbing encouragingly at a still-flushed Enjolras’s arm as they disappear behind him, and decides that he likes Courfeyrac.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Marius's Promposal is a full-on rip-off from the movie, and [I don't give a fuck](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7N6kB11GpE).
> 
> The only part of Grantaire's speech that is entirely invented are the statistics for Padua High specifically. My high school did cap your lunch debt, [a school trying to prevent students with outstanding lunch debt from graduating](https://www.mprnews.org/story/2019/05/15/ellison-lunch-debt-graduation-bans-policy) only painfully recently had that decision ruled unlawful in court, and a school [really did turn down $8000 from a local business](https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2019/05/08/its-embarrassing-kids-students-who-owe-lunch-money-will-only-get-cold-jelly-sandwich-district-says/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.e60c4bcc0ac8) to pay off students' lunch debt in the school. Here's the other receipts if you're really interested in learning about food insecurity in America, American lunch programs, how terrible the American Department of Agriculture website is ($10 says their link is already a deadend by the time this goes up), or extremely precise stats about Franklin County, Washington (I'm not even remotely from the west coast, so this was all a wild ride for me). [[1]](https://map.feedingamerica.org/) [[2]](https://familiesusa.org/product/federal-poverty-guidelines) [[3]](https://www.fns.usda.gov/school-meals/) [[4]](https://public.tableau.com/profile/feeding.america.research#!/vizhome/MaptheMealGap-ChildFoodInsecurity/ChildFoodInsecurity) [[5]](https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2018-07-19/pdf/2018-15465.pdf) [[6]](https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/piercecountywashington) [[7]](https://www.thenewstribune.com/news/business/article215392310.html) [[8]](https://www.northwestharvest.org/stuff/contentmgr/files/0/660d2117cdf12bdf10a8c82edaf7bcc3/files/northwest_harvest_childhood_hunger_2013.pdf) [[9]](https://www.towncharts.com/Washington/Education/Pierce-County-WA-Education-data.html)
> 
> "One of today's unlucky ten thousand" is a reference to [this popular xkcd comic](https://xkcd.com/1053/).
> 
> Yes, there exist bitches that directionally challenged, and that bitch is me.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Warnings:** the babiest of all biphobia (but technically existent)

The week that follows is a flurry of requests from the school not to speak with reporters, final assignments, Prom preparation, and Courfeyrac making him way more frazzled over said Prom preparation than there is any reason to be. 

For one thing, he is now painfully aware of Grantaire’s entire dating history (or rather, the rumor mill surrounding it). And it’s not as if Enjolras hasn’t made out with people before (Person. Singular.), but he’s also never wanted to, and apparently Grantaire has. A _lot_. And almost exclusively with women, so there’s also that, which isn’t a big deal except in all of the ways that it is. But Courfeyrac says that Grantaire is into him and that it shouldn’t be an issue. And...kissing hadn’t been pre-approved for fake-dating. Their almost-kiss in the car had been real, hadn’t it?

More pressing is the idea of Prom as a whole, because Enjolras doesn’t care, but Grantaire might, and if he doesn’t like Enjolras then he’s taking someone he didn’t even want to take to Prom to his _Senior_ Prom, and that isn’t fair, so Enjolras needs to make sure things are perfect. Grantaire had sent a gif of a baffled-looking walrus when Enjolras asked if they were doing matching colors, so he’s pretty sure that’s not a priority. He asks Cosette what color waistcoat her brother’s wearing anyhow, and after she stops looking so damned pleased with him she shoves a purple swatch from a giant purse into his hand, along with her cell phone number. The action is accompanied by uncharacteristically forceful demands to send her pictures of his and promises to keep him updated on any further Prom-related particulars that may arise. 

So that’s corsages managed.

He refuses to get a limo, no matter how much Courfeyrac complains. Originally they plan for Combeferre driving the three of them to the dance, but the man declines, so Enjolras is next in line for chauffeur duties, sense of direction be damned. A one-line text from Cosette determines that Enjolras will not, in fact, be accompanying his friends for their pre-Prom activities, though their post-Prom sleepover plans are still on. No one says anything when, at the last minute, Courfeyrac announces that Marius will be joining them and acting as driver.

For all of Combeferre’s reluctance to drive them later in the evening, he has no problem dropping Enjolras off at the address Cosette had told Enjolras to arrive at an hour and a half before the dance. When they pull up to a rather innocuous home that matches the photo the woman had attached (he strongly suspects that Grantaire has relayed Enjolras’s incompetence and is embarrassingly grateful for the guide), Enjolras finds that he can’t move from his seat.

Combeferre reaches over to put a comforting hand on his knee. The man had allowed his older sisters to fuss over his grooming earlier in the day (a feat that Courfeyrac is dealing with himself now that he has determined Enjolras to be ‘acceptable’), but he hasn’t changed into his suit yet, wearing a soft flannel shirt and jeans.

“It’ll be fine,” Combeferre says. “Just breathe.”

Enjolras forces himself to do so, in and out until he’s confident he can do it without having to think about it. Bracing himself, he fiddles with the plastic boutonniere case in his lap and turns to meet Combeferre’s eye. “I’ll see you at the dance?”

The man smiles. “No matter what happens here, you’ll see me at the dance.”

He takes another very intentional breath in through his nose and out through his mouth. “An hour and a half.”

“No more, no less.”

He glances toward the house. “What if his dad hates me?”

“His aunt loves you, and so does his sister.” Combeferre adopts an amused expression. “Presumably, your date doesn’t think you’re too awful either.”

Enjolras snorts, shaking his head with a smile. This is exactly what he needed. Courfeyrac is great at comforting people, but Combeferre’s brand of calm is what he’s been missing through this entire ordeal.

“Thanks,” he says, trying to push all of his sincerity into one word. “I’ll be looking for you, okay?”

“We’ll find you,” the man assures. 

Enjolras gets out of the car and approaches the front door. He’s aware of Combeferre waiting to see him in and privately grateful for all of the man’s little acts of tenderness as he raises his finger to ring the doorbell.

He never gets the chance, narrowly avoiding the out-swinging glass storm door and nearly falling under the expanse of ruffles that launches itself at him—an expanse that is quickly revealed to be Cosette. She pushes herself back, squeal of excitement finally dying as she examines him with a gleam in her eye. “You look incredible! Oh, and sapphire, it’s gorgeous with your eyes! Come on in!”

As she ushers him in, he sees her wave toward Combeferre’s car and avoids the dread that rises at its slow departure. _An hour and a half_ , he reminds himself. 

Cosette has already moved past him deeper into the house, presumably to where he hears a commotion rising, but he finds himself instead drawn into an ornate room off to the side of the entrance. It’s looks like one of those dining rooms that only gets used twice a year, containing a fireplace and a fancy already-set table ornamented with two solid-looking candlesticks, but more important is the distressed-sounding voice he hears within.

“Look—no, Zel, listen to m—I _know_ they are, but they’re _not good people_.” There’s a pause. “Yeah, I get that, but—no, look, they ju—I know I did, which is why I’m telling you that you shouldn’t! Gav’s over here already, why don’t you just— _it’s a bad idea_ , they don’t actually...fine. I’ll see you there, then.” The phonecall is finished with a huff, and Éponine finally seems to realize that he’s frozen in the doorway watching her. To be honest, he’s only just now realizing it himself. “Can I help you?” 

To say that Éponine has ever seemed overly warm or welcoming would be an overstatement and a severe misrepresentation of her character, but the words come icy-cold in comparison to any of their other interactions over the years.

“Is everything okay?” he asks despite knowing the answer.

“Swell,” comes her flat response. “Come on, Fantine should be just about done fussing over _your date_ by now.”

He follows her out of the room and toward the noise where it would seem everyone is congregated in the kitchen.

“Found a straggler,” Éponine says cooly, a sly smile betraying that she might secretly be pleased to be there. She takes her place by Cosette’s pile of tulle at the end of a well-loved kitchen table while Fantine fusses with an unobservant Grantaire’s bowtie.

Enjolras has put a lot of thought into tonight—the suit, what to bring, traditions, manners—but somehow in the jumble it had entirely escaped him that, not only would he be going with Grantaire, but also that _Grantaire_ would be going with _him_. 

The man has apparently received a haircut for the occasion, and where Éponine wears a black suit with a high collar, bowtie, and coattails Grantaire wears a suit cut more like his own with a purple silk waistcoat and tie that bring out all of the warmth of his skin tone.

“You must be Enjolras,” a deep, unfamiliar voice greets. Between the table and the cooking area stands a large man with with white hair. He’s also dressed for the occasion in charcoal slacks, a white button-down, and...an aroace pride tie? He approaches Enjolras, towering over him and extending an enormous hand. “I’m Grantaire and Cosette’s father.”

“Mr. Valjean,” Enjolras says, trying not to sound startled. “It’s very good to meet you.”

Enjolras has caught himself on more than one occasion trying to imagine the overbearing father who forces outdated and patriarchal values onto his daughter, but on finally meeting Valjean he finds that the man is not at all when he'd expected. Appearances can be deceiving, yes, and misogyny takes on all forms, but this bear of a man seems subdued and unassuming, and rather than calling forth arbitrary stipulations of his daughter’s love life Enjolras instead finds himself remembering the story that Grantaire had relayed in the burger shack about his aunt. The handshake comes to an end, and the man returns to his spot surveying his surroundings, seeming to beam with pride and joy at the bustle occurring around him. 

Fantine finally appears be done with his—with his _date_. “Whoever chose sapphire for you has excellent taste,” she informs Enjolras approvingly. “Your eyes are absolutely sparkling.” She now turns to fussing over him and evaluating the fit of his suit (Courfeyrac had insisted that they take it to his parents’ tailor, and under Fantine’s close inspection he’s now glad that he’d let his friend fret over this particular detail).

 _Sapphire?_ he mouths to Grantaire once Fantine is behind him.

 _Blue._ The man shrugs. _Let her have this._

Several minutes later, Fantine is standing upright and clapping her hands together. “Are we all ready for photos, then?”

“Gav!” Grantaire shouts through the house. Seconds later, a boy rounds the corner, somehow looking equally refined and dishevelled in his own black tuxedo and sucking on a lollipop. 

“Dashing as ever, Gavroche,” Fantine compliments, her smile lighting up the room. Enjolras has moved beside Grantaire in front of a counter, and Gavroche takes his place to the other side of the man. “Are we waiting on anyone else?” 

She glances around the room, not seeming to ask anyone in particular, but Enjolras catches Éponine giving a small shake of her head in Grantaire’s direction, and the man answers. “Nope, this is everyone.”

“What about Cosette’s date?”

The room is filled with uncomfortable silence as everyone looks toward Cosette. “They actually ended up bailing, so I’m just going with Éponine,” she explains politely.

He’s about to volunteer that Courfeyrac and Marius are going as friends as well, but he catches himself in time to avoid that particular blunder. “I’m glad that you were able to work something out,” he offers instead.

 

Photos go much more quickly than Enjolras had hoped to expect, in no small part because Fantine has a very specific shot list already drawn up that everyone except Enjolras already seems familiar with. Photos with their dates are finished quickly enough, and the rest of the time seems dedicated to capturing every possible combination of family members (including Éponine and Gavroche, he’s surprised to see). He expects to feel uncomfortable, but there’s a warm and familiar atmosphere emanating from the family that only draws him in.

A lovely meal follows in the room he’d stumbled across earlier where, despite her previous coldness, Éponine proves to be a much more adept conversationalist than Marius, even when the goal seems to be nothing more than making Grantaire as uncomfortable as possible. 

Before they leave, Valjean hugs each of his children, pressing firm kisses to their foreheads and telling all of them to be safe and not to be afraid to call him in case of anything. It looks like there’s tears welling up in the man’s eyes, and Enjolras swallows hard at the open display of affection.

They climb into the car, Éponine and Cosette seeming much more comfortable in the back without a third, and no one comments on their collective emotional state as Grantaire starts the car.

“Your dad seems really nice,” Enjolras says as they sit at the stop sign to leave the neighborhood.

“He is,” Cosette smiles from the back.

It’s silent for a beat before Grantaire clears his throat, voice slightly gruffer than usual. “Yeah, well,” he says, eyes focused on the road, “Valjean’s a good guy.”

Enjolras nods. “Yeah.” He doesn’t wait for Éponine to say anything, and he suspects from the way she’s looking out the window that she isn’t going to. 

The parking lot is jam-packed tonight, but Grantaire’s usual spot in the back is open as ever, and they pull in without a problem. Getting Cosette’s dress fully unfolded from the car, on the other hand, is a two-person problem, but he and Éponine manage it without a hitch, and Enjolras finds himself incredibly grateful that the other woman had opted for a suit.

As they approach the doors of the school, panic begins to rise in Enjolras’s chest again: he doesn’t see Courfeyrac, Combeferre, or Marius anywhere. They had ultimately taken slightly over two hours, but Enjolras had texted his friends this. He pats his pocket for a fidget cube he already knows isn’t there and feels himself becoming more and more agitated as they climb the steps.

Suddenly, he feels something brush against his palm—Grantaire’s hand, deftly weaving their fingers together and giving a gentle squeeze. Enjolras turns to look at the man without slowing his pace and finds Grantaire smiling over at him. Feeling the tension melt out of him, he pushes down a desperate urge to press a peck to the man’s cheek. He’ll find his friends soon enough; for now, it’s enough to bask in this moment.

They enter the school, and it briefly occurs to Enjolras that this is the first time he’s been on the property at this time of the day without having to worry about getting caught. Grantaire presents their tickets, and they’re admitted into the giant gymnasium.

During one of their pollution arguments, Grantaire had told him that if he gets too caught up in thinking about the process and waste that goes into everything, he won’t be able to properly enjoy anything in life. The man was still entirely wrong about fireworks, but the observation wedges itself into his mind when he walks into their makeshift ballroom: streamers are strung over everything, a truly unnecessary number of balloon arches line the space, an already half-melted ice sculpture is dripping over a stand and onto the floor, and piles upon piles of plastic cups and foam plates litter tabletops amongst abandoned high-heels and clutches that their owners grew weary of soon after arriving.

Grantaire’s breath comes hot behind his ear and Enjolras tries to not to let his erratic heartrate show. “I’ll concede that the waste might get the better of this event.”

Triumph rolls over him. “I’ll find a table?” Enjolras shouts over the din.

“I’ll grab some punch—unless plastic cups—”

“Get the damned punch,” he laughs, searching for a place to sit. He catches the eye of Éponine, who seems to be on a similar mission, and wades into the mess of balloons and tablecloths until they come across an available table. 

Grantaire seems to be managing his task beautifully when he finds them, precariously carrying four cups between his two hands. He allows everyone to grab their respective punch before throwing his back in one go and sinking in a seat next to Enjolras.

“Cosette! You gonna take off your shoes?” his date shouts across him to the woman in question.

“I did not spend _a month_ looking for iridescent heels to make me taller than Éponine just to take them off in the first five minutes of Prom!” she shouts back.

“She’s still taller than you!”

“Yeah, because she cheated and wore heels too!”

Grantaire laughs. Enjolras sees that the man is already sweating in the heat of the room, and both of them make short work of removing their jackets.

 _A month?_ Something about it stands out in his mind. What was happening a month ago? He hadn’t even known Grantaire and them. But perhaps Cosette had misspoken, or maybe she just wanted to be taller than her best friend on principle, and she just happened to be asked by a junior or senior to go to Prom after. 

He shrugs, debating how much trouble he’ll be in with Courfeyrac if he loosens his tie before seeing the man tonight.

“I’m gonna walk around!” he shouts to Grantaire.

His date nods, and Enjolras rises, trying to make out recognizable faces and features in the neon lighting of the room. Courfeyrac will dance, of course, and he might be able to persuade Marius to, but Combeferre is most likely camped out at a table and watching the proceedings. 

It takes only the work of a few minutes to locate the group all piled atop one another trying to read something by the dim light of someone’s cell phone. Enjolras has to rest his hand on Courfeyrac’s shoulder before the man takes notice of his presence.

“Enj!” the man shouts, pulling Enjolras into a hug. “We ended up getting in late too, sorry we weren’t out front!”

He motions that it’s no problem, not willing to tire his voice out this early in the night. He sees that someone else who he doesn’t recognize has joined their party and motions to them with a questioning expression.

Courfeyrac smacks Combeferre’s shoulder, indicating to their fourth member with a nod of his head. The new person is slight, a flower crown over top an intricate braided hair style. They wear a Japanese silk suit jacket over a plaid shirt with a giant tulle skirt whose volume appears double that of Cosette’s.

Combeferre has come prepared, a message already typed on his phone: “This is Jehan Prouvaire. They’re a sophomore in my science class. We probably won’t be inside for most of the dance, the lights and music disagree with me. They have your number if anything arises that you need to be contacted for, and I will have my phone.”

Enjolras looks warily between the phone, Combeferre, and Jehan before nodding and giving a thumbs-up. He might even join them at some point: the atmosphere is definitely overwhelming, and the thought of being in it for four consecutive hours is dizzying.

The two duck out immediately after Jehan is formally introduced to Enjolras—he suspects that they were waiting for him—and then he’s left with only Courfeyrac and Marius.

Marius looks, in a word, miserable. He’s exquisitely dressed, as can only be expected of someone under Courfeyrac’s care, and his hands appear positioned in a way that pointedly avoids what is surely extremely carefully-styled hair. He’s not unattractive by any stretch, but one doesn’t need to be well-versed in Pontmercy to see that the man is clearly pining.

Courfeyrac leans in next to Enjolras: “Don’t say the C-O-S-E-T-T-E word!”

Enjolras looks at his friend. Marius is _distressed_ , he can still _spell_.

Courfeyrac seems to read his meaning. “He can sense the name!” his friend explains. “I don’t know why it works, but it does!” Courfeyrac looks around the room before speaking again. “Anywhere particularly good for dancing?”

Enjolras catches his meaning. “This half of the room!” he says, gesturing to their current surroundings. “Other side of the room is too—” Codes, codes, codes. “—purple?” 

Courfeyrac nods before turning to Marius and pulling him up under his arms. Enjolras can’t hear what the man says, but he suspects it’s a forced invitation to dance.

Enjolras takes it as his cue to wander back to his table. Éponine and Cosette are nowhere to be found, but Grantaire stands near their table with the two people he recognizes from the protest. Introductions are shouted, but Joly tells everyone that they need fresh air immediately, and Bossuet goes to accompany them. 

“I feel like that wasn’t a coincidence!”

Grantaire shakes his head, smiling. He points a thumb over his shoulder at the dancefloor before doing a quick shimmy that Enjolras supposes to be an invitation. He nods, laughing, and allows himself to be pulled to the floor by his grinning partner.

Enjolras is a bad dancer. Terrible. Courfeyrac once called him ‘irredeemably horrific,’ and the brief stint he’d had with dance lessons was ended without debate after Enjolras had put what he’d felt was genuine effort in for his parents’ minimum five weeks of lessons.

Dancing with Grantaire, he thinks he should be self-conscious, maybe be worried about looking right or sexy, but something in him just clicks, and he can’t be bothered to. He knows he probably still looks ridiculous, but he’s listening to music he almost likes, with a boy he definitely likes, in a space where no one else matters, and he feels himself letting go of all of the anxieties he’d had before about everything pertaining to this event.

He has no idea how long they’ve been dancing when Grantaire grabs his wrist, making gestures that Enjolras interprets as ‘water’ and ‘air.’ He nods, somehow only just now realizing that he is drenched in sweat and absolutely parched. This time, Enjolras drags Grantaire out by his wrist, and he bypasses the closest water fountain to go to what is sure to be a much less crowded one two hallways over. The air is cold and refreshing on his skin, and he is suddenly aware that his hair is soaked and dripping. He looks back at Grantaire, letting go of the man’s wrist and trying not to stare at the grinning man. His date falls in beside him, and out of the corner of his eye Enjolras sees the man loosening his tie and the top two buttons of his shirt, something that Enjolras makes a very pointed effort not to pay too much attention to.

He wants to say something—anything—but he hears voices around the corner at the water fountain they were just about to approach.

“Cosette!” someone’s voice cracks. _Marius_. “You—you look gorgeous.”

They turn the corner to see Cosette standing in front of the water fountain with Éponine at her side, sleeves rolled, arms crossed, and jacket nowhere to be found. Marius looks flushed, possibly from dancing and possibly from Cosette, and Courfeyrac stands just behind him with an expression that lies between righteous indignation and concern.

“Thank you,” Cosette accepts. She sounds mildly uncomfortable, and Enjolras isn’t sure if it’s new or if he’s only finally picking up on it.

“Marius, let’s go, there’s other water fo—”

“Courf, let me just—” Marius takes a breath. “Is your date around? I mean, of course he is, but I. Can I know who—” 

“I’m not sure that’s any of your business,” Éponine interrupts, stepping defensively in front of Cosette.

“Éponine, it’s fine,” Cosette quietly reassures. More loudly, she answers, “They never showed. No big deal.”

Éponine doesn’t seem much calmer, but she steps back a little. Her hand wraps protectively around Cosette’s waist.

“Well, uh,” Marius responds, brightening as he adjust his bowtie, “I know we’re already here, but if you want I could—”

“She’s not. Interested,” Éponine all but growls.

“I’m not sure that’s for you to say,” Courfeyrac responds, stepping up beside his friend.

“I think it might be, actually.”

“Éponine,” Cosette warns.

Courfeyrac scoffs. “Oh, are you Cosette’s keeper now? Taking over now that her dad can’t do anything?”

Cosette’s expression takes on a look of shock and real offense, and Éponine appears livid. Grantaire unbuttons and rolls his sleeves, and even to Enjolras’s ears the words are judgmental and wrong, especially after he’s met their father and has seen firsthand his unwavering love and dedication to his children.

Things are escalating too fast for Enjolras to offer his evaluation: Grantaire has already taken his place on the other side of his sister, who also looks impressively prepared to throw down. Marius looks more headstrong than Enjolras has ever seen him in the face of conflict, eyes locked with Éponine, and even in a bowtie and suspenders at all of five-foot eight Courfeyrac looks nearly menacing. He knows that if it comes to blows, regardless of his convictions, he’ll have to back his best friend up, and he’s not looking forward to it.

“She’s not some _thing_ to be won,” Éponine grits, fists clenched.

“Then maybe let her make her own decisions on that,” Courfeyrac throws back, “instead of defending her like some prize.”

“Her mind’s already made up, and if that changed I’d be the first to know.”

“What, because you’re her self-assigned bodyguard?”

“ _Because I’m her girlfriend._ ” 

The hallway is silent, and Éponine’s expression after she says the words is an odd mix of righteousness and regret. She wraps an arm back around Cosette, pulling her close and allowing herself to be swallowed up by tulle, and Cosette in turn hugs the woman close to her, nuzzling at her shoulder. Éponine clears her throat to continue. “If she and I be pleased, what’s that to you?”

For his part, Courfeyrac stutters awkwardly. “Wow, I—I didn’t realize—I mean...I am _very_ sorry. That is an excellent reason for your reaction.”

Enjolras expects Marius to look disappointed, but after his eyes flicker back and forth between the two women several times a wide smile grows on his face. “That’s great! You two seem really happy together.”

“We are,” Cosette affirms, hesitant defensiveness still tinting her tone.

“Then I’m happy _for_ you.” Marius has been described by Courfeyrac before as being too good and kind for this world, and in this moment Enjolras thinks he might finally be seeing a glimpse of that. “I really didn’t mean to put you on the spot like that.”

“It’s okay, Marius.”

“We know you didn’t,” Éponine agrees. Something in her seems to be simultaneously relaxing and filling with unease, as if the crowd is making her uncomfortable. “Um. I think...Cosette, do you still need water?”

“Nope,” the other woman smiles, “I’m good for now.”

Éponine looks at Cosette for a beat like she’s her entire world before abruptly clearing her throat and grabbing her girlfriend’s hand. “In that case,” she says, addressing the rest of the people gathered, “we’re heading back to the dance. See you around, maybe?” 

They clear the hallway, and Courfeyrac stares after a pleased-looking Marius as the freckled man drinks his fill. “You’re not...bothered?”

Marius looks up at his friend, appearing genuinely puzzled. “Why would I be? She has someone who makes her happy. If I was turned down for anyone, I’d much rather it be someone who I know is kind to and loves and respects and cares for Cosette than some random stranger. Éponine’s a good person, and I know she treats Cosette well.”

Courfeyrac nods in slow understanding, and Enjolras can’t help but feel like he’s watching the scene play out through two panes of glass. When Courfeyrac’s taken his turn at the fountain, he speaks again. “It does offer a lot of perspective to your mini-golf date, though.”

Marius chuckles, scratching behind his ear. “You know, it does, now that I think of it. Yeah, no, they’re really great together.” He looks up at Enjolras. “Want us to wait for you?”

Enjolras’s mouth opens and closes, and he’s swiftly reminded that he is still parched. “We’ll catch up with you.” 

Marius accepts the brush-off at face-value, but Courfeyrac’s eyes linger as he passes. Enjolras nods, a request, and Courfeyrac returns it in silent understanding, glancing uncertainly in Grantaire’s direction before leaving with the freckled man.

Enjolras takes a slow, deep breath before approaching the water fountain. He drinks more as a chore than from actual desire to as his mind clutches at the opportunity to process what he has seen. When he straightens up again, he finally looks at Grantaire, who steadfastly avoids his gaze. _He knew. He knew, and he let this happen anyway._

“How long have they been together?”

He knows the answer—the part that matters, anyway: at least a month. At least as long as they’ve been pretending to date.

The man runs his hand back through his hair, looking at the ground. “A while.”

“ _How long?_ ”

Grantaire sighs. “I dunno, five or six months? It took me a while to figure out, Ép was always over anyway.”

Enjolras swallows. “Your dad doesn’t seem like he’d have a problem with it.”

The man gives a dry laugh, turning his attention to the ceiling. “Yeah, well. They have their reasons.”

“Which are?” The silence is deafening. Grantaire’s answer to this feels important, like maybe it can redeem everything that has happened. If it was done for a good cause, if he can just make Enjolras understand that it was somehow essential…

He finally looks at Enjolras, and Enjolras feels the forfeit before the man even speaks. “Not my place to say.” There’s a bitter smile in the admission, and Enjolras feels his stomach turn. 

“I want to go home.” 

He hears Grantaire take a sudden inhale before nodding, eyes once again at his feet.

Marius finally seems like he’s having a good time, so Enjolras is reluctant to make him leave, and Courfeyrac doesn’t have his license yet. Enjolras pulls out his phone to call Combeferre, but he already has a text from an unknown number declaring themself to be Jehan and informing him that Combeferre wasn’t feeling well and that they took him home. 

He sighs. “Can you take me?”

Grantaire bites his lip before nodding again. “Okay.”

The walk to the car after retrieving their things is silent, as is the ride to Enjolras’s house. Grantaire must have asked someone for directions at some point, or maybe someone forced directions onto him, because fifteen minutes later they’re sitting in front of his house. The half-conversation from earlier still hangs heavy between them, and Enjolras knows he can’t leave without addressing it. 

“You lied to me.”

“Not in so many words.”

“You _lied_ to me.”

Grantaire eyes remain trained in front of him. “You came to your own conclusions based on what a young woman felt pressured to say in the face of intense heteronormative pressure.”

“You could have told me.”

“What, that it was a show within a show? That ‘no’ wasn’t enough for your friend and my sister felt pressured to invent stupidass excuses not to go that you then pointedly circumvented to create this fucking sitcom scenario?”

“Any of it!” Enjolras laughs mirthlessly. “That this was a show for Marius, that your dad doesn’t care about if your sister dates, that Cosette is already in a relationship at all. Do you really think so little of me?”

“It wasn’t for me to say,” the man repeats. “And anyway, this only happened because you couldn’t stay in your own lane and threatened me with your preconceived notions of the situation. It’s not like I ever had a choice.”

Enjolras feels all of the rage and fury that has been burning in him a second ago go icy in his chest. Right. Of course. None of this was ever real in the first place.

“You’re right.” He takes a moment to steady his breathing before repeating, “You’re right. This was for your sister, and apparently it was a service that was not only unnecessary but also unwanted, and for that you have my apologies. The necessity is dissolved. You no longer have any obligation in this.”

He can’t decide if Grantaire’s silence makes this easier or harder. “I’m sorry I ruined your sister’s plan, and I’m sorry to have imposed on you.” _Deep breath Enjolras_ , he reminds himself, forcing a smile. “Thank you for the ride. Have fun tonight, stay safe.”

“Yeah. Thanks.” Grantaire doesn’t look at him. Instead, he stares straight ahead at the steering wheel. His hands are still at ten and two, for fuck’s sake. Enjolras wants to make Grantaire feel something, wants to make him hurt. But this was only ever a business transaction to him—as it should be, as it should have been for both of them.

“Yeah,” Enjolras echoes. “I’m. I’m going to go now,” he states. He doesn’t know what he’s waiting for. Maybe he’s hoping that Grantaire will tell him not to?

He waits in vain: Grantaire remains silent, and Enjolras unbuckles his seatbelt and steps out of the car with no hindrance. It occurs to him to say something final and cutting before he shuts the door, and he turns with the intention of doing so, but the man in the driver’s seat is still staring steadfastly ahead, and Enjolras changes his mind. “Thanks again.”

Enjolras enters his house and goes straight to his room, throwing off his jacket and tearing out his tie. He ignores the sound of his parents calling after him, trusting them to give him space far more than he trusts himself to be able to talk about this right now. Grantaire’s car is still parked out front, and he closes the blinds so he doesn’t have to face the sight.

After kicking off his shoes, he throws himself to his bed and pulls out his phone, texting Courfeyrac and Marius that he’s home and Combeferre to call him when he feels up to it.

It’s stupid to feel hurt over this, and he knows it’s stupid. Hell, he even understands that whatever is going on with Éponine is none of his business and that Grantaire doesn’t owe him an explanation for it. But why did they continue stringing him along even when Cosette finally declined Marius’s offer? Surely his part had been played to satisfaction by then. The Promposal? The near-kiss in Grantaire’s car? It doesn’t add up—or rather, his treacherously hopeful heart only sees one way that it could. 

Climbing off of his bed, he walks back to his window and peeks through the blinds for a familiar beater. The car’s not there—of course it isn’t, it’s been nearly forty minutes, and Grantaire has a dance to be at. Enjolras sighs. Whether the man does genuinely like him back or not, Enjolras has already embarrassed himself enough in this endeavor. 

He changes into pajamas, leaving the suit in a pile on his desk, and stares at his phone screen for a full minute before going to bed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> :(


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Warnings:** passing reference to underaged drinking, mention/threat of conversion therapy (not graphic), loss of home, vague allusions to prior feelings of hopelessness for this life, general family feels (in the good and bad way)
> 
> (summary available in end notes)

By the time he arrives back at Prom, Grantaire is fairly certain he no longer looks like he’s spent thirty minutes crying in front of Enjolras’s house, but Joly and Bossuet seem to know anyway. They invite him along to an extremely promising-sounding afterparty, but tempting as the offer is he still has to take Cosette and Éponine home.

When the time comes for them to leave, the girls put up no fuss. Cosette insists that they stop by a convenience store for some ice cream and emerges with three quarts in tow. On arriving home, Cosette announces a movie night, and when Grantaire finally enters the living room in his sleep clothes a blanket fort is in the works with the selection screen for his favorite cheesy nineties movie playing. 

When they at last collapse in a pile and start the DVD, Éponine wordlessly produces the ice cream and three spoons, and they eat until long after the movie is over, selecting something else pointless and inane to half-watch. Whatever the girls do or don’t know, no one says anything, and the sky is growing light out the window before anyone even considers sleep.

 

Grades were due in Sunday, so technically seniors don’t have to attend anymore, but Joly and Bossuet are still coming in, and Grantaire isn’t interested in spending hundreds of dollars to drink on some strange California beach when he can do the same thing in Bossuet’s basement with the right youtube video, a heat lamp, and some beers from the man’s family’s fridge. Plus, seven hours a day of movies is hardly a sacrifice.

This is how it comes to be that Grantaire is on campus when the Éponine’s parents come to claim their daughter.

Really, it’s something that Grantaire should have thought about earlier—thought about and anticipated—but he’d also trusted that Marshmallow, Enjolras, and Courfeyrac weren’t the type to shoot their mouths off about it to anyone. 

It’s just him and his physics teacher in the lab watching _Ferris Bueller’s Day Off_ when he sees movement in the window of the door, followed soon after by a quick knock. The teacher moves to get it, and Grantaire’s ears prick at Éponine’s voice indicating that he needs to go to the office.

The teacher looks at him with a cocked eyebrow, and Grantaire rises. He didn’t bother bringing his backpack to school today and goes to the door with nothing more than a wave as he passes through the doorway.

“So, what did I do wrong today?”

“My parents are here. I think someone told them.”

“Shit,” he offers automatically. The full weight of situation dawns on him. “ _Shit._ ” 

“Yeah. I looked it up, they started crowdfunding this morning for the costs.”

“They’re actually going through with it? I thought conversion therapy was only a hypothetical.”

“When you have a rich, homophobic congregation, a daughter who keeps undermining you and your ‘respectable reputation,’ and a guy who will call his brand of torture ‘therapy’ for under half the sticker price, may as well go for broke.”

Grantaire grabs Éponine by the shoulder, pulling her to a stop. “Do we have a plan?”

“You’re the plan,” she says, shaking his hand off her shoulder.

He stares at her a beat in disbelief. “No, we’re figuring this out now. Do they know where you’ve been staying?”

She huffs, crossing her arms. “No. I’m pretty sure that’s why they came here to get me.”

“So can you, like...not go?”

“I’m not sure the secretaries can allow that. And even if I don’t go now, they’ll camp out front until I have to leave.”

“We can sneak you out the back, no one has to know.”

“And tomorrow? And the day after that? And what about next year? R, I can’t keep hiding from them. And if they find out about Cosette specifically, my residency with you guys is on borrowed time.”

Grantaire sighs because she’s right. “I’m calling my dad.”

Éponine tenses. “Is that okay? Isn’t he working?”

“And Javert hates him,” Grantaire shrugs, “but he’s one of the most respected members of our community, and you know he’d drop anything if it meant your safety. Plus, if it comes down to it, man’s a fucking _ox_ , and Cosette swears she saw him doing some parkour-level shit at the gym one day, so if nothing else we can make a quick getaway.”

That makes Éponine smile, and when he pulls out his phone she doesn’t stop him.

With Valjean confirmed as coming, Grantaire’s body finally begins to register what’s about to go down. “You want Cosette too? I don’t know what she has right now, but…”

“No,” Éponine says firmly. “I know she can hold her own, but she has finals coming up in three days, and I don’t want to drag her into this any more than she needs.”

“You do too.”

“Well yeah, but I don’t exactly have the choice. If I could opt out of this, I gladly would.”

“You make a good point.” He looks down at his phone. When Valjean had hung up, he’d said he was already in his car and should be there in five minutes, but it’s only been two, and Grantaire doesn’t want to risk anything until they have muscled, respected, legal adult back-up.

“What’ll you do?”

Éponine snorts. “Your dad looking to adopt three more kids?”

Grantaire shrugs. “He doesn’t seem to mind Gav, so I wouldn’t write it off just yet.”

She gives him a look of consideration before leaning back on a locker and sliding down to the floor. He moves in beside her, matching her motion with an exhausted exhale. He doesn’t want to ask, but…

“Do you think Zelma knows?”

She huffs. “I think she told them. When Cosette and I left you guys that night, I saw one of her loser friends running off.” They sit for several long, drawn-out moments. “Is it pathetic that I’m not even mad at her? Like, I know I should be. Betrayed, angry, _something_. But it just makes me more disgusted with them for making her that way. Y’know?”

He doesn’t, not really. He knows rage at a parent he has no connection to besides biology, and years of therapy has brought him to put most of his feelings of inadequacy behind him, but he’s never had to live with and be raised by anyone who made him feel worthless or used him the way that Éponine’s parents do, or ruins lives for their own benefit. No, the people he sees as his true parents are the Jondrettes’ opposites in every way that matters.

He’s still searching for a response that might mean anything to her when his phone starts to vibrate. On seeing Valjean’s picture, he accepts the call. “Yeah?”

“I’m pulling in now. Where are you and Éponine? Are you in the office yet?”

“No, we wanted to wait for you.”

“I’ll text you when I’m in.”

“Sounds good. And Dad?”

“Yes?”

Grantaire hesitates a moment, trying to gather the words he wants. “Thanks. For everything. I love you.”

“I love you too,” he hears the man smile. “I’ll see you soon.”

Grantaire hangs up and turns to Éponine. “He’s in the parking lot, he’s gonna text when he gets in.”

Éponine pushes herself off the floor, patting the dirt off her hands. “Then I guess we’d better get moving.”

They receive the text on their walk to the office, and when they finally let themselves in Valjean appears to be having a standoff with Éponine’s parents.

“Reverend Jondrette, your daughter is here.”

“Jondrette?” Valjean repeats.

Rev. Jondrette nods, smiling. “I’ve been making my way up in the world since we last met.”

Valjean is still frowning when he turns to them. “Éponine, do you have your things? We’re leaving.”

Mrs. Jondrette’s voice squawks from behind him in a squeaky laugh. “ _You’re_ leaving? _We’re_ leaving. _Vamos Éponine, tu padre ya tiene t—_ ” 

“Actually, you’re not,” Valjean informs them. “According to SB 5722, conversion therapy has been illegal in the state of Washington since last year. Your crowdfund has been shut down, and you should be receiving a visit from Child Protective Services in short time. In the meantime, I have been granted permission to have temporary guardianship over your children if they so choose while you are undergoing investigation.”

The Jondrettes are gaping like fish, the office secretaries are gaping like a fish, _Grantaire_ is gaping like a fish. The only people who seem to have any degree of composure are Valjean and the newly-arrived Principal Javert.

“Do you have a doctor’s note, Mr. Valjean?” the principal asks.

Grantaire doesn’t roll his eyes but only by a very small margin. Valjean and Principal Javert’s meeting had gone impressively poorly for the latter, to the point where Joly, Bossuet, and his entire punishments were dismissed and the principal had actually had to apologize to _Grantaire_. He suspects now that Javert is going to pinch at every opportunity to be petty that Valjean can afford him.

“I don’t.”

“Then I’m afraid that Mr. Grantaire and Miss Jondrette here cannot leave with you.” 

“ _Mr._ Grantaire here,” Grantaire says, “is a senior and not required to be in attendance today. Which I’m pretty sure means I can leave whenever I want.”

Éponine shrugs. “Give me detention, then. Or, better yet, mark my truancy as a negligence strike against my legal guardians—that’s ‘Jondrette,’ with two t’s and an e. I’m out.”

They don’t bother to wait for a response, pushing their way out the office doors without interference. Grantaire quickly identifies Valjean’s car, and they wait there another ten minutes before the driver himself arrives to unlock it. 

Grantaire settles into the passenger seat as Éponine spreads herself across the back. 

“That could have been handled better,” Valjeans chastises as he buckles himself in.

“He could have been less of a dick,” Éponine shrugs.

Grantaire’s fairly certain that his dad is trying for ‘stern,’ but his mouth betrays amusement. “Éponine, we’re getting Gavroche now, and then we’ll go to your home to get your things. Do you have a key?”

In the rearview mirror, Grantaire sees Éponine’s expression falter. “We should probably get Azelma while we’re here then.”

Valjean seems to steady himself before turning to face Éponine. 

Before he can say anything, she’s cutting him off: “She didn’t want to come, then.”

Grimacing, Valjean's eyes fall before looking back up at her. “She didn’t feel any imminent need to leave and wants to see how things turn out.”

Grantaire hears Éponine take a shaky breath before replying. “Right. Okay then. Let’s get Gav.”

 

Gavroche seems to already know what’s going on by the time they arrive to get him despite that even the frazzled-looking man in the office appears entirely unaware. He joins Éponine in the backseat, and Grantaire’s heart breaks a little further to see the recognition settle in that it’s just the two of them. The boy doesn’t say anything about it, instead launching into teacher staff room drama that has Grantaire on the edge of his seat wondering what will happen next.

They collect the Jondrettes’ possessions without too much hassle: it would seem that most of their clothes have already migrated, and besides them Éponine and Gavroche show little attachment to anything else. There’s hardly more than a trash bag of items between them, and Grantaire and Valjean end up leaving the house empty-handed. 

Éponine stands in front of the house, bag in hand and squinting at it.

“Something wrong?” Grantaire asks.

“Just taking it in one last time.” Éponine stares a moment longer before spitting in the front lawn and turning back to the car. “Let’s go Loser, we’re burning daylight.”

The ride back to his house is short and familiar, and Valjean turns on the radio to fill the silence. It feels odd not to be in the driver’s seat for the trip, but then, the whole day has been odd. 

He notices the time as they pull into the driveway and shoots a quick text to Cosette to take the bus home today. When they arrive at the house, he sees that Fantine is already home, which isn’t unusual, but she’s also outside and clutching a giant cardigan to herself, which is.

She wraps Éponine in a hug that the girl does not protest, and she even manages to wrangle Gavroche into the physical affection campaign, pulling the boy close to her and pressing a kiss into his dark curls.

“Let’s have a snack,” Fantine announces.

They pour into the house, meandering into the kitchen and gathering around the table as Valjean pours several varieties of foods into assorted bowls. The air holds the tension of an anticipated conversation, and Gavroche seems to sense that he is the one holding it up.

“Whatever you need to say, you can say it in front of me,” the ten year-old states, grabbing another fistful of puppy chow and dropping on the plate in front of him.

Éponine shrugs. “May as well.”

Valjean seems to take another moment to compose himself before he speaks. “Conversion therapy or not, it’s very likely that your parents will go to prison.”

“Oh yeah, they’ve got all sorts of illegal crap lying around the house,” Gavroche agrees through a mouthful of food.

“I’ve had a running file with CPS open since you two began staying here,” Valjean admits, “and you have come here saying some rather incriminating things. Before arriving, I had hoped that, combined with today’s events, it might be enough for CPS to finally intervene.”

The man pauses, looking around the table before continuing. “Éponine, Gavroche, your parents did not always go by ‘Jondrette.’ They wore a different last name for a long time before then, one that the police department has been searching for. I would ask your permission to tell the police—”

“We don’t snitch,” Éponine says, crossing her arms. “Especially not to pigs.”

“Most of us don’t,” Gavroche grumbles.

“Hush.”

“—but your parents still look remarkably similar to how they did those many years ago, and if that weren’t enough they have a number of rather incriminating items around the house that I suspect will be very difficult to hide.”

“I _told_ you they knicked that painting!” Gavroche loudly whispers.

“Gav, _shhh!_ ” Éponine repeats, also whispering.

“I—” Valjean’s eyes dart to Grantaire before continuing. “I have something of a record myself, and the only reason I was able to take Grantaire and Cosette in was because it was a closed adoption that no one looked at too closely.” Fantine nods at the table like she already knows, purple-sweatered arms still crossed where she stands. Grantaire probably should feel betrayed, and perhaps later he will, but for now he has two friends in need. “I’m reluctant to believe that your parents will allow anything so convenient to pass with you two, and—”

“And you don’t know what’ll happen to us after we’re officially taken from our parents,” Éponine finishes. There’s desperate calculation going on behind her eyes. “Do we know how long it’ll take? Because I’ll be eighteen in a couple of months, and if I get a job and save up between now and then—”

Valjean is already shaking his head. “I’m afraid that the process for becoming a legal guardian is a bit more complicated than that, and these things can happen very quickly or very slowly depending on immediate need. They’d need evidence of a stable income, safe home environment, no history of delinquent behavior…”

Fantine looks up. “Why don’t I do it?” All heads turn to her. “My business has been doing well, I don’t have any record, and friends and relatives of the children usually get first priority, no? I think of you as my children already, I’d just need to make up one of the spare rooms and convert the office—it’s not like I use it.”

Grantaire swallows hard and looks back at his dad, who appears to be thinking. 

“I...I do believe that could work. And you’re certain about this?”

“I have never been more certain about anything,” Fantine asserts before turning to look at Éponine and Gavroche. “Would that be okay with you two?”

“Like.” Gavroche gulps a too-large mouthful of food. “Even if you weren’t already _Mamá Fantine_ , isn’t our other choice foster care?”

Éponine gives him a gentle whack in the shoulder. “He means, ‘yes please.’ And obviously we’ll pay you back however we can and help you around the house an—”

Fantine laughs, and the tension at the table finally breaks. “Éponine, please. _Mi hija_ doesn’t need to earn her place in my home.”

Éponine’s nose is reddening, and her eyes are beginning to glisten, and it feels very much like Grantaire is intruding upon an extremely personal moment. Grabbing a handful of chips seems counterintuitive to allowing them to have their moment, so instead he averts his eyes.

“Thanks,” he hears Gavroche say. It’s uncharacteristically soft for the boy, and it occurs to Grantaire that as nonchalant as he’d been acting since he got into their car, living with Fantine spells the end of a nightmare that he’s been living in since birth. 

The tender moment is ended by someone—he suspects Éponine—abruptly clearing their throat. “So uh. What does this mean, moving-wise?”

“Well, we certainly can’t have you sharing a bed with Cosette anymore, now that you’re living here full-time,” Valjean says.

“And especially not now that we know you’re dating,” Fantine clarifies. Valjean’s eyebrows raise in a way that indicates that he did not, in fact, know. “Oh, come now Jean, Éponine is outed shortly after Prom, which our daughters attended together? _Claro que sí._ ” 

A surge of smiles rise around the table at the casual reference to ‘daughters,’ plural, but Valjean’s countenance remains conflicted. 

“I’m sorry we didn’t tell you, Mr. Valjean. We trusted you not to tell my parents, really, but I was afraid that I might not be allowed…” _Allowed to stay._ Éponine’s words echo in Grantaire’s heart from when he’d found out so many months ago, the fight on two fronts that Éponine waged with her newfound happiness.

“Well, that won’t be a problem,” Fantine informs her brightly. “You can start staying in my guest room tonight.”

Éponine looks between Valjean and Fantine warily. “And that won’t be a problem with CPS?”

“If we file the paperwork over the next several days and I make a few phonecalls,” Valjean says slowly, “we could get temporary custody transferred to Fantine and have her application waiting for permanent custody when the time comes. So yes, we could feasibly begin moving today.”

“I promise to do everything right from here on out,” Éponine assures Valjean. “I’ll ring the doorbell and have Cosette home by curfew and ask your permissio—”

“That won’t be necessary,” Fantine tells her, shooting Valjean a quick, sharp glance, “will it, Jean? After all, we know you care about Cosette and would never let anything happen to her. You don’t need to jump through hoops to prove that to us.”

Éponine looks back to Valjean, nodding quickly.

It takes a moment for Valjean to respond. “...right.” A smile breaks out on Éponine’s face before he continues. “But no more sleepovers with just the two of you!”

Fantine raises her eyebrows at him. A wordless conversation occurs between them before Fantine breaks the eye-contact. “We’ll continue this later. Éponine! Do you feel up to moving your things, or do you think you need a moment?”

Éponine’s lips disappear for a moment before she speaks. “If it’s all the same to you, can we wait a bit?”

Valjean smiles. “Of course. Take your time.” He turns to address Gavroche. “I do believe the pool opened last week: do you feel up to it?”

Gavroche brightens immediately, and after they decide to pick up a swimsuit for the boy on the way there and Fantine takes her leave, it’s just Éponine and Grantaire left sitting at the table. The weight of what just happened seems to be hitting her at last, and Éponine stares blankly at the tabletop taking unsteady breaths.

“Walk?” Grantaire offers.

She nods, rising unsteadily and following Grantaire out the front door. He turns to lock it behind them.

“I made it.” It’s a murmur, a shaky confession carried to him by the wind, and he faces Éponine to receive it. “Oh my God, _I made it._ ”

He watches the relief and grief break across his friend’s face as the tears finally come in full force and he pulls her into his chest. 

“I didn’t think I would Grantaire, I didn’t think we’d—”

“Shhh, shhh,” he whispers into her neck, rubbing circles into her back. “You’re here now. You’re safe, and it’s all over. You’re home now.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Summary:** Grantaire had cried in his car before going back to the dance, after which Cosette and Éponine made a point to comfort him as much as they could via ice cream and shitty movies despite not being totally certain what was going on.
> 
> In response to word of Éponine's non-hetero status spreading (Éponine suspects Azelma's friend told her, who told their parents), Éponine's parents show up at school to send her away to conversion therapy as a power-play for always making them look bad to their congregation and generally undermining them however she can. Éponine goes to Grantaire for help, Grantaire calls in Valjean, and by the time Valjean shows up arrangements have been made for Éponine and her siblings to be under his temporary care until the authorities can figure out what to do about her parents' extremely illegal attempt to send their daughter to conversion therapy (an unsanctioned one at that), in addition to a long laundry list of items Valjean's been filing away with CPS since meeting Éponine.
> 
> Once Valjean has collected Éponine and Gav (Azelma elected not to join them) and they've gone to the Valjean/Fauchelevent/Grantaire residence to regroup, Valjean reveals that he is unable to adopt Éponine and Gav because of his history with The Law (R and Cosette were possible because it was a closed adoption and no one looked very closely at his records). Fantine volunteers to take them in instead, and after a brief discussion it's all but decided on. After everyone else leaves, Éponine has a brief emotional moment with Grantaire, relieved that she is finally safe from the nightmare she'd been living for so long.
> 
> \---
> 
> [SB 5722](http://wapsych-news.org/sb-5722-restricting-the-practice-of-conversion-therapy-passes-the-senate/) is a very real piece of legislation that banned the practice of conversion therapy in the state of Washington June 2018.
> 
> On a much lighter note, "puppy chow" is not dog food, it's a [popular American snack](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puppy_chow_\(snack\)).


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Warnings:** None

Word seems to have circulated the school by Tuesday, and Grantaire is relieved that Éponine was able to procure an official excuse from school for the week to avoid the gawking. Grantaire’s involvement, he feels, was rather minimal, and Cosette didn’t even know anything until she got off the bus and had the situation explained to her, but that doesn’t seem to lessen the amount of looks they get as they step onto school grounds.

“Hey, R! Cosette!” Grantaire looks around and quickly identifies Courfeyrac as the most likely source. “C’mon over, we’re talking revolution!”

Grantaire looks over to Cosette and shrugs. She responds in kind, and they head over to where Courfeyrac is unconventionally seated around an ornate senior gift to the school from a decades ago, his friends clustered all around.

‘Revolution’ turns out to be a bunch of juniors, Joly, and Bossuet complaining about their school lunch campaign losing momentum in the face of Javert’s gag order on interviews. Enjolras, of course, seems to be the main instigator, and he only pauses a moment when Grantaire joins the group before picking up again with increased conviction. 

Grantaire’s not a fan of pity, but having people to stand with this morning feels like a relief in the face of the rumors and looks that he suspects will continue throughout the day, and he’s grateful to Courfeyrac for extending the invitation. Enjolras...well, he pointedly isn’t making eye-contact with Grantaire, which he supposes is to be expected. Grantaire keeps his commentary to himself, but there’s truthfully not much to be added to Enjolras’s points: they’ve become stronger and better-fortified since they last spoke, and if Grantaire thinks he catches the ghost of some lines or phrases that seem to echo his own arguments he’s sure it’s all in his head.

By the time warning bell is ringing the team seems no closer to solving their dilemma, though all of them wear determined expressions as they go their separate directions.

“Ah, Grantaire!”

He turns to face Enjolras, carefully trying to keep his countenance blank of reaction and his mind void of hope.

“I, uh. I heard what happened. With Éponine and her brother.”

Him and everyone else in the school. Grantaire stares at him.

“I just...are they okay?”

Grantaire sighs, looking around. It doesn’t matter if he’s late to first period: he’s the only one who’ll be there, and he can stand to miss a couple of minutes of _Rugrats in Paris_. “Fantine’ll be looking after them. It’s all taken care of.”

“But...that’s a big change, right? How are they holding up?”

He checks the time before turning toward the junior wing. “You’re gonna be late, let’s walk and talk.” Grantaire waits until Enjolras is beside him before speaking. “She’s fine, he’s fine. All in all, it’s not a huge shift except that Gav’s no longer just a weekender.”

“I heard that their parents’ church is under investigation too. Tax fraud, money funnelling…”

“They’ll find a whole mess of charges to bring up against them, Éponine’s parents aren’t good people.”

“You knew all of this already, then.” They’re stopped in front of a classroom that Grantaire presumes is Enjolras’s end destination.

Grantaire shrugs. “Mostly suspicions, but I definitely had an idea, yeah.”

“I’m sorry for pressuring you to tell me. You were right, it wasn’t for you to say or me to know.”

“Eh, it makes sense that you’d want to, though.” 

Enjolras is biting his lower lip and looks like he’s preparing to say something when the late bell rings. “I, ah. I guess I’ll see you around?”

“All of today and tomorrow,” Grantaire says, forcing a flat smile.

Enjolras’s expression falls, and maybe he intends to say whatever he’d been planning before the late bell, but his teacher calls his name, and Grantaire turns on his heel with a hand held up in goodbye as he heads to catch up on his morning-dose of nostalgia.

 

As last period comes to a close and Generic Boy finally realizes Generic Girl is The One for Him, Grantaire glances between the clock and his history teacher, asleep just as she had been when he’d arrived. There’s two minutes until final bell, and Grantaire is still deciding if it’s worth waiting out when someone appears beside his desk. His heart says they materialized from nowhere, but his brain says that he’s probably not very observant.

“You know, if you want to date him, you still can.”

Grantaire looks up at the speaker and makes a face. “Do I know you?”

The man peers down at him, eyebrows raised. “I’ve sat beside you all year. We’ve been review partners multiple times.”

Grantaire shrugs, shaking his head.

“I’m the only person in this room who isn’t in your graduating class?”

Something clicks in Grantaire’s brain. “Oh, _you’re_ Ferre.”

The man—boy—brings his fingertips to a temple, rubbing it he inhales deeply through his nose. “Yes,” he says at last. 

Grantaire really can’t begrudge Ferre this: he’s also impressed he’s made it through four years of high school learning as few names as he has. “Can you say that first bit again?” 

Ferre looks as if he’d rather not, but he does anyway. “Enjolras. He thinks you don’t want to date him.”

“To be _Ferre_ ,” he says with a tired grin he doesn’t feel, and Ferre remains equally deadpan, “I haven’t given him much reason to think otherwise.”

The man sighs again, and Grantaire is pretty sure whatever Ferre’s trying to do for him is much more than he deserves. “Well, were you to _elect_ to, Enjolras might not be wholly opposed.”

“Yeah?” And okay, Grantaire really doesn’t think his response warrants the huff that one earns. 

“ _Yes_.”

“Right,” Grantaire says, nodding. “Great. Thanks. I’ll keep that in mind, then.”

Ferre gives him another withering look, and Grantaire gets the distinct impression that his soul is being read and found lacking. “Please do.” 

Whether because Ferre is utterly done with him, has masterful understanding of linear time, or is simply psychic, Grantaire cannot truthfully say, but his classmate leaves the room as soon as the conversation concludes, final bell ringing in unison with his exit. The teacher startles in her seat, looking out at the classroom and narrowing in on Grantaire. 

“The bell rang,” she tells him unnecessarily.

Grantaire nods dumbly, still processing the exchange from moments before as he stands and fumbles his way out of the classroom and into the hallways.

He’s nearly through the front door by the time he sees her leaning against a vending machine, looking irritated and skittish. Grantaire is determined to keep his head down and ignore her, but she seems to have other things in mind.

“Grantaire!” Azelma calls, agitation falling away to reveal almost innocent earnestness. “Grantaire!”

He takes a moment to debate if the interaction would be worth it: Éponine might not be angry with her, but Grantaire is. Huffing, he pulls her outside to a gaggle of tables. She drags behind him like a ragdoll.

“What do you have to say for yourself?” he barks, crossing his arms. She flinches at that, hands rising instinctively as if to protect herself. Taking a deep breath, he decides to change tack. “Sit down?” 

She does, tentatively, and he doesn't miss that she seems to intentionally place herself just outside of his reach from where he sits across from her. “Can you give this to her for me?” A folded-up piece of paper is placed between them, Eponine’s name written on the outside in scratchy handwriting.

“They’re doing fine, by the way.”

She winces, looking down in her lap. “I know they are. They always have. They’re strong like that.”

“And you?”

Azelma shrugs. She’s far too thin, skin seeming to hang off of her exposed collarbones, and Grantaire is reminded of when he’d first met Éponine. “I’ll do what I’ve always done.”

He feels bad for a moment before remembering that Azelma is the reason that one of his best friends was nearly taken away from him, and his walls come back up. “What does it say?”

There's sharpness in her eyes when she glances up at him. “None your damned business.” 

And ah, yes, the Jondrette suspicion. He remembers this too. “You nearly got Éponine sent off to some illegal torture therapy, I think it is ‘my damned business.’”

“ _I didn’t_ ,” she says hotly. Her body slumps a little at the table. “I didn’t,” she repeats more quietly. “I didn’t find out until after Mom and Dad already…” She looks back up at him, fierceness returning. “I’m no snitch.” 

Grantaire's eyes dart between her and the note, and he sighs. Whatever is in this letter could make or break Éponine. She’s doing well enough now, but Azelma is still a very touchy subject, and Gavroche’s disappointment in his middle sister is already showing signs of hardening into anger and disgust.

Ultimately, though, it’s not his decision to make. “Fine. But if this is some trick, some bullying tactic your parents have conned you into, so help me, I will—”

“I don’t know what Gav and Ép have told you about me,” Azelma interrupts, “and you can hate me all you want, but please never doubt my love for them.”

He holds her look until she breaks it, eyes falling back to where her hands fidget in her lap.

“I should be going. My friends, they—”

Standing, he grabs the paper from between them, a bubble of anger rising in him once more. Of course she’s still spending time with them. He wonders if she even realizes that they’re the rats who tore her family apart. He wonders if she cares.

Cosette seems to sense that something isn’t right when she gets to the car, but she’s polite enough not to say anything, instead turning up the radio slightly too loud for conversation through the twenty-minute drive home.

 

—-

 

It’s the last day Grantaire is in school, and all Enjolras can bring himself to do is hold morning court in his presence, over a subject that Grantaire has spearheaded the campaign for more than any of them. Even when he is directly addressed the senior maintains his silence. Enjolras doesn’t need a neon sign: Grantaire isn’t interested. Really, it’s probably for the best that they’ll never have to see each other again after this.

No big deal.

Éponine’s not in school again, and he thinks maybe he can ask Grantaire about that, but the man disappears before warning bell to take a phone call and never reappears. 

 

The end of the day comes and goes uneventfully. Enjolras doesn’t even realize he’s waiting for something until nothing happens, and when he finally pinpoints the reason for his irritability he feels even more frustrated. He receives a text from Combeferre asking about developments on the Grantaire front and at Enjolras’s negative response is invited over for dinner. He puts serious consideration into accepting, but ultimately he really just needs time alone to...well, to be a moody teenager.

Apparently he plays the part well.

“You okay? You’ve been sighing ever since you sat down,” his mom informs him over dinner.

He stares at his mashed potatoes and peas as if they hold the answers he’s looking for. 

“You don’t have to tell us if you don’t want,” he dad assures him, “but we’re here if you need.”

Enjolras shakes his head. “No, I do want to, I just—I need to find the words first.”

His parents nod understandingly. “Take your time,” his mother assures him, ladling gravy over her dish. “We’re here all night. And every day after that.” 

Enjolras nods. The rest of the meal passes pleasantly enough, his parents exchanging stories about their day while he mulls over how to phrase the events of the past several days. And maybe that’s the problem, because it’s not just days—not really; it’s the culmination of weeks of outings, things said and unsaid, grand gestures and small nods. 

Dishes are washed and his parents are in the front room before Enjolras finally feels ready to share, taking a deep breath before knocking on the doorway. “Mom? Dad?”

His parents look up with expectant smiles, lowering their respective reading materials. “Yes Honey?” his mother asks.

“Can we talk?”

His father leans over to pick up the remote, switching off the background noise of the TV in mute response. Crosses the room, Enjolras settles into an overstuffed armchair that faces the sofa where his parents sit.

“You remember the fake-date I went on a couple of weeks ago? And then the second one at the mini golf course?”

His parents both nod.

“Cosette didn’t actually like Marius, she was just being polite. And Cosette actually is allowed to date without her brother, but I didn’t find out until after we were already at Prom. And...I’m so confused, because he did things that really seemed like he liked me. Like, he staged a sit-in protest over school lunch debt to ask me to Prom, and he took me out for dinner after the protest, and things seemed to be going really well.”

They watch him expectantly. “But?” his dad prompts.

“But then I found out that it was all staged, and we’ve barely talked since. And I was upset that he hadn’t told me, but then I found out that he’d had a good reason, and I tried to talk with him about it, and I just— _augh_ ,” he groans, tugging at his hair. “And now everyone keeps saying he still likes me, except that he won’t talk to me, and I’m just really tired of always having to be the one putting myself out there to be humiliated.”

His mother takes a sip of tea before speaking. “Enjolras, Sweetheart,” she tells him sagely, “men are trash.”

His father nods his agreement.

“Grantaire sounds special, and I’m sure he is, but also what he and his sister did wasn’t fair to anyone involved.”

“How is Marion taking it, by the way?”

Enjolras isn’t sure if he wants to laugh or cry at his father’s mistake. “Marius was upset at first, but after he found out that Cosette is dating the girl that came with us on the second date he was okay.” His parents clearly have questions about this, and Enjolras braces himself for them. 

“I don’t suppose that this other girl had anything to do with Grantaire’s ‘good reason’?” his mom asks.

“Yeah, so she—” He cuts himself off, unsure of what he’s allowed to say. It’s all over the news by now, so he supposes it’s fair game, but he also wants to preserve what’s left of Éponine’s privacy if he can. “Her parents aren’t nice people, and she and her brother aren’t living with them anymore. She and Cosette weren’t telling people they were dating because they were afraid of the fallout, and Grantaire was helping them.”

“And that’s all very noble,” his mother begins, “but it’s still okay to be upset that he hasn’t talked with you since.”

“Let’s take the Marie Kondo approach to trash for a second.” His father rearranges himself so his feet are flat against the floor. “Just because it no longer serves a purpose in our lives, doesn’t mean it was never important to us. We thank it, and we let it go. It’s okay to feel that way about people. What’s the saying? _Better once than never, for never too late._ ”

Enjolras bites the inside of his mouth and fiddles with the edge of his t-shirt. “But what if I’m not ready to throw him away?”

His father shrugs. “That’s okay, too. Whenever you feel ready.”

“But also, remember to put on your own oxygen mask first,” his mother says. “If he’s not treating you nicely, you need to be looking out for yourself first and foremost.”

He knows his parents are right, and he knows that this is what he needs to hear—not his friends’ assurances to keep holding out for someone who keeps putting the burden of expression on him. It doesn’t make it suck any less to hear. “Yeah. Well, it should be easier from here on out: today was his last day.”

He tries to keep his voice light, but both of his parents’ faces fall at the words, and his mother’s arms are already reaching out for him. “Come on, we’re doing cuddles and a movie. What are we feeling tonight?”

Enjolras lets his parents pick something with terrible special effects that is definitely not from this century. Once he’s burritoed up in a quilt, a tidal wave of exhaustion hits, and he doesn’t even realize he’s fallen asleep until his dad is shaking him by the shoulder to wake up him.

“You’re too big for me to carry you anymore,” he father explains apologetically.

Enjolras nods groggily before sitting himself up. He unravels himself from the quilt only to pull it around himself again for his journey up the stairs. Once he’s in his room, he doesn’t even bother unmaking his bed, instead falling over it and pulling the quilt close to him, savoring the smells of home and drifting back into sleep’s warm embrace.

 

The busride to school is somehow more and less energetic than usual, an even mix of the buzz of the last two days of the schoolyear and the dread of the first of two half-days of finals testing. 

Enjolras’s sleep had been restful and dreamless, exactly what he’d been hoping for. As he approaches where he sees his friends gathered, he can’t help but notice Joly and Bossuet’s absence. 

(And Grantaire’s. His too.) 

Cosette is there, though, and it eases a knot of tension inside of Enjolras to know that maybe he has a chance to get closure with at least one member of this whole convoluted situation. 

He’s prepared to stop her before she leaves for the warning bell, but Cosette is already turned knowingly to him as if she’d anticipated the act.

“Um.” He’s usually much more eloquent than this. What is it about their household that makes Enjolras resort to filler-words? A pack of students pushes past them before he asks the first and foremost question that’s been concerning him since Tuesday. “How are Ép and Gav doing? They’re with Fantine, right?”

She gives him a surprised look, smiling nonetheless. “They’re good. Settling in well. All of the paperwork on our end is done for now, so it’s just a waiting game to get everything made official.” Cosette seems like she has more to say, but she stops herself.

“That’s good, that’s good,” he nods. “And you? I’m sure it’s a big change for you, too.”

She shrugs. “Not really? I mean, it’s nice to have my relationship with Éponine out in the open now, and I don’t need to worry about her or Gav anymore, but otherwise things mostly feel the same.”

Enjolras isn’t ready for the conversation to stop here, but he doesn’t know what else to say that isn’t some pathetic variation on ‘Why won’t your brother talk to me?’

“Here,” she says, holding a folded piece of paper out to him. 

“What is—”

“Just take it.”

He does, turning it over to see if there’s any writing visible from the outside. “Do you know what it says?”

“No,” Cosette says with a small shake of her head and a smile, “but I have an idea.”

Enjolras nods, dazed, and tucks it into his back pocket. Whatever the letter says, he can’t afford to read it before the tests ahead of him.

“Do you watch the local news much?”

He looks up at her. “I mostly read it online,” he admits. “I can’t sit through the ads.”

“Channel four has a segment today that you might be interested in,” Cosette tells him, backing away. “3 o’clock. You should check it out.”

“Okay,” he responds. He looks up at a clock on the wall and realizes how late he is. “Um, see you around? Good luck with your tests!”

“You too,” she says, finally turning to walk away.

 

Putting off reading the note, perhaps unsurprisingly, does not actually take his mind off of it in the least. His math and history finals go well enough, but the entire time Enjolras’s thoughts keep turning back to the flimsy piece of paper burning a hole in his pocket.

As soon as they’re released from the exam room Enjolras takes his flight, hurrying out to where he’d agreed to meet with Courfeyrac after school to go to the brunet’s house. He leans against the lamppost and unfolds the note. The handwriting is slanted and cramped, just like he remembers it being in detention, though here the man seems to have remembered to pick his pen up from the page between words. Enjolras squints at the paper, taking a minute to decipher the script.

_Dear Enjolras,_

_I know you hate flowery words and run-on sentences, so I’ll try to keep this brief: I really like talking and arguing and making up stupidly specific rules to putt-putt golf with you. And I’m sure there’s lots of other things I’d enjoy sharing with you too. I totally get if you hate me, I pretty much deserve that, but I just thought I’d let you know that I don’t hate you back._

_-R_

_PS: I finally met Fair (Fare? Faire?). He definitely hates me, and I suspect I pretty much deserve that too._

He rereads it several times, but it still doesn’t make sense. How is it possible that, in being more direct, Grantaire has only become more cryptic?

“Enj!” he hears.

He knows it isn’t Grantaire, but for some reason he still finds himself disappointed. “Hey Courf.”

Leans over his shoulder, his friend peers at the paper as Enjolras hastily refolds it. “Whatcha got there?”

“Nothing,” he says too quickly. He lasts all of three seconds under Courfeyrac’s unimpressed stare before caving. “Cosette had a letter for me from Grantaire.”

Courfeyrac’s face lights up. “See? I told yo—”

“It just says that he doesn’t hate me.”

His friend’s eyes narrow. “Context?”

Enjolras sighs, handing the note to Courfeyrac to read for himself.

“Your boy’s shit at expressing himself,” is Courfeyrac’s conclusion thirty seconds later. “Fortunately for both of us, Marius just got a new Lego playset in last night, and you and I are on a very exclusive List of people helping him assemble it today.

“Courf, I—”

“I know you’re shit with following instructions, but they’re pictures: how bad can it be?”

 

The answer is, Really Bad. Courfeyrac and Marius allow him to struggle through for nearly an hour before tossing the assembly instructions aside and declaring a free-for-all that Enjolras is sure will end as soon as he leaves but is grateful for nevertheless.

“ _Conejo_ ,” Courfeyrac’s mom calls from another room, “didn’t you say your friends weren’t allowed to give interviews about your protest?”

“Yeah? What about it?”

“I think one of them missed the memo.”

The three of them exchange looks before scrambling to the living room. As they move, Enjolras checks the time. 3:02.

“And here joining us today, we have Mr. Jean Grantaire, a senior at Padua Area High School, where just two weeks ago—”

Enjolras’s jaw drops. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Marius’s expression brighten and Courfeyrac pumping his fists excitedly into the air. 

“That’s right R, fuck ‘em up!”

“ _Juan Courfeyrac-García!_ ”

“ _Lo siento Mamá._ ” Courfeyrac sinks to the ground, enraptured, and Marius and Enjolras quickly follow suit.

“We’ve had a hard time getting anyone to come on the show to talk about this, what made you step up Mr. Grantaire?”

“Well Cheryl, up until now Principal Javert has been threatening Padua High students with expulsion and withholding their diploma if any of us consent to interviews, a rather intimidating fate especially for us seniors with so much to lose as the schoolyear comes to a close.”

“And you’re not worried?”

“After some personal research and a discussion with several lawyers familiar with this kind of work, I ascertained that doing any such thing is illegal and could very well end in a lawsuit for anyone who would attempt to enforce such a mandate.” By the end of the statement, Grantaire is looking directly at the camera as if daring Principal Javert himself to come to the studio to challenge him directly.

“Wow, that does sound intimidating,” the interviewer agrees. “Now, I’m told that you were the leader of the protest that happened two Thursdays ago, is that true?”

“In conjunction with two peers, yes.”

“Is student lunch debt a cause that’s important to you, Grantaire?”

“You know Cheryl, it’s not. It’s never affected me personally, and when I discovered that it did affect some friends of mine I only researched it long enough to call it a lost cause.”

The interviewer appears to be at a loss for where to go from here.

“It wasn’t important to me, but someone recently made me feel like maybe there was something to be done about it, at least in a localized setting. Drawing attention to the problem, for one, and making people understand that it’s a real issue plaguing our community. Providing actionable solutions. Exposing those preventing progress as oppressors.”

“And who do you think is preventing progress?”

Grantaire laughs, shaking his head. “My lawyer and my dad have both advised me against answering that question. However, I encourage viewers to think long and hard about who has the means by which to make things change and if they’re doing it. Hypothetical food for thought.”

“Of course, and I’m sure we’ll all think very hard on that." The camera refocuses back on the anchor. "We’re about to show footage from the protest itself where Grantaire and his colleagues rallied their peers to ‘sit down’ for clearing school lunch debt, take a look.”

Enjolras’s mind is racing. Grantaire’s note hadn’t said anything about this, but he must have been planning it for a while now. He thinks back to the phonecall Grantaire had left them for yesterday morning and wonders if the two instances have anything in common.

On the screen, Grantaire is being witty and smart and cutting, never letting the interviewer stray too far from the point and generally doing everything Enjolras hasn’t been able to do until now.

“Grantaire, that’s just about all the time we have today, but I have two more questions for you.”

“Fire away.”

“Earlier in the show you mentioned a certain someone who brought you to believe that you could make a difference: any chance we can get more information on this mysterious source of inspiration?”

“You know, Cheryl, I wish I could, but I’m not sure I can legally disclose that information. What I will tell you, though, is to look out for a fiery blond Elizabeth Stanton-type on the rise over the next couple of years in the political arena. He cares too much and takes no prisoners, and he’s going to change the world.”

“Is he watching today?”

Grantaire shrugs casually. “Hard to say. Hopefully not, it’d be kind of hard to explain in the context of me generally fighting him on every point he’s ever made,” the man says, winking at the camera.

“In any case, it sounds as though you have a lot of faith in him.”

Grantaire nods. “I do,” and Enjolras tries not to die on the spot, ignoring the two pairs of eyes he feels on himself.

“One last thing before you go! A little bird told us that today is your birthday!” Balloons and confetti fall from the ceiling as birthday music plays in the background, and there’s no mistaking that Grantaire is glaring at someone standing off-stage.

_Great. Another year less attainable._

Grantaire blows out a candle on a cupcake with grim reluctance that the interviewer either doesn’t notice or chooses to ignore. “So Grantaire, now that you’re a legal adult, what’s the first thing you think you’ll do?”

The man blinks, and the expression on his face is one that Enjolras is very familiar with and knows spells certain regret for the interviewer. “Well Cheryl, I hear foot photos fetch a good price on the right parts of the internet, so probably start to establish myself in that industry.”

Her face is frozen as Grantaire smiles smugly at the camera, and someone’s mic is picking up traces of Éponine’s hysterical laughter.

“W-w-we’ll get back to you after this break with why the future of football may be doomed for these rival school districts when we return.”

The TV cuts to commercials, and everyone remains seated, stunned.

“If he only became a legal adult today,” Courfeyrac says at last, slowly, “wouldn’t that mean he’s been the same age as us until now?”

It takes Enjolras a moment to process his friend’s words. “ _That dic—_ ”

“Woah, Enj!” Courfeyrac interrupts, scolding. “Language!”

Marius pushes Courfeyrac on Enjolras’s behalf, and they all fall over in a pile of laughter.

 

Enjolras’s nerves are tattered and frayed when he finally pulls up in front of the Grantaire residence Friday. Marius and Courfeyrac had been up past midnight with him coaching him through the very conversation he’s trying to gather his courage for now, and he has virtually no recollection of either of the finals he took this morning. 

Most of all, he’s tired. He’s tired of trying, he’s tired of wondering, he’s tired of careful steps in a dance routine he’s never learned. At this point, more than anything, Enjolras just wants some sense of closure with the dark-haired man. And if that means formal and outright rejection, then he can follow his father’s advice, internally thanking Grantaire and letting go of him.

And if he isn’t rejected...

He actually gets a chance to ring the doorbell today, and when it opens he finds himself looking down at Gavroche. The boy stares back at him for a beat, deadpan, before shutting the door. Enjolras has a full second to panic that his efforts end here without even having spoken with Grantaire before he hears the boy shouting the man’s name through the house. Enjolras hears Grantaire’s muffled voice behind the door before it opens.

It feels odd seeing Grantaire in-person again after having seen him on TV: he, all at once, seems more and less real, even barefoot in a thin t-shirt and flannel pajama bottoms. Grantaire’s comment about his aspirations for the future come to Enjolras’s mind unbidden, and suddenly his face is burning and he’s clearing his throat to find his words.

Grantaire puts his plate down on a table beside the door, the other hand reaching up to rub at the back of his neck. “Enj. Are you here for—”

“I’m here to talk to you,” he rushes out.

The man’s eyebrows raise. “Oh. Uh, okay. Did you send a text, or…?”

A text. Yes, that would have been smart.

But no, he needs to do this right. After all, Grantaire went on the local news for him. _Grantaire believes in him._

He fumbles at the printer paper tucked away in his pocket, unsure of how to explain this, and decides to take Marius’s advice (of all people) and just go for it. He takes a deep breath and starts:

_“I’ve never cared much for poetry_  
_And still I don’t, though it would seem_  
_That some people hold it in high esteem_  
_And so I’ll give it a shot and see_  
_If it’s all that it’s cracked up to be—_  
_A true expression of raw feelings,_  
_I’ve heard it said that it can be_  
_What we stay alive for._

_“I’m tired of being so vulnerable_  
_While you sit and hide behind castle doors_  
_Leave me wondering if you’re wanting more_  
_Am I even sure what I’m fighting for?_  
_And you have shaken me to my core_  
_Despite that you seem to abhor_  
_Expecting more from the world; you’ve sworn_  
_That you don’t subscribe to pen and sword_  
_Or anything at all._

_“But I’ve heard it all before and tried_  
_And tried and tried and tried and tried_  
_To understand and compromise_  
_What I have seen with mine own eyes._  
_I know you say the world is fine_  
_With sulking in its dirt and grime,_  
_That revolutions are a dime-_  
_A-dozen prospect and decline_  
_To invest any of your time_  
_Or self into a cause that you’re resigned_  
_To sell short at the line_  
_Of trying to improve the lives_  
_Of people in our short lifetime_  
_But even so, if it’s all right,_

_“Maybe I could be your cause?”_

The words come out in a long, unpunctuated, rambling rush, and he can’t meet Grantaire’s eyes even after he lowers the paper and begins fiddling with the edges.

At long last, Grantaire says something. 

“Did you try to rhyme ‘vulnerable’ with ‘castle door’?”

Enjolras looks up, indignant. “We called up Ferre’s poet-friend, they said it was fi— _oof._ ” 

He’s crushed in a hug that squeezes the breath out of him. Once he’s able to properly register what’s happening he hugs Grantaire back, breath growing shaky in the whiplash of changing emotions. When they finally pull away, the man is grinning down at him.

“You wrote a poem for me?”

Enjolras gets the distinct sense that he’s being teased, but he nods anyway, eyes on the greenery to the right of the door.

“You asked your _friends_ to help you write a poem for me?” 

He grumbles. “It’s not like I’ve ever tried anything like this before.”

“Can I have it?”

Enjolras looks up at the man. “You liked it?”

Grantaire grins. “Of course I did. It was horrible and earnest and perfect and so very, very you.”

“I get the impression that I’m being insulted.”

The man leans in close to his face, and any calmness that he’s collected in the past minute disperses immediately with the proximity. “Only if you want to take it that way.” Grantaire holds the eye-contact long enough for Enjolras to gulp before darting in to kiss him on the cheek and summarily snatching the paper from his hand.

“Hey!” Enjolras shouts, flush and trying to force outrage through laughter as Grantaire holds the poem high above his head, stepping backward into the house and cackling maniacally. Enjolras takes it as an invitation, chasing the man in the door and doing a sort of hopping run to remove his shoes. He follows Grantaire downstairs into a finished basement, only to run headfirst into him at the foot of the stairs.

“You okay?” Grantaire asks, helping him up from where Enjolras has tackled both of them to the floor.

“Umm...yeah?” They’re extremely close even now that they’re upright, and it only just occurs to Enjolras that they’re alone when he feels Grantaire’s hands fall to his hips.

Grantaire leans in to his ear to whisper. “You caught me.”

Enjolras’s breath hitches, and he’s not sure where to go from here. “‘Blond Elizabeth Stanton’? Really?”

The man pulls back, probably trying for a neutral expression but missing by a mile. “You—you saw.”

“It’s the local news station _I told you about_ , of _course_ I saw. Even if Cosette hadn’t told me, it would have shown up on their website that evening.”

“ _Cosette_ ,” Grantaire hisses through clenched teeth.

“I wouldn’t have come otherwise, you know.”

That gets his attention. “To be fair, I was expecting a text.”

“ _To be fair_ , ‘not hating me’ isn’t enough for me to assume you want me to reach out when you leave for college in three months.”

“Vo-tech.”

“I—what?”

“Vo-tech,” Grantaire repeats. “Joly and Bossuet were worried about having their college admissions revoked if they did the interview, so I did it alone. And I’m attending the local vo-tech school.”

“Oh. Well that’s—” Can he say ‘convenient’? Is it presumptuous of him to admit to wanting to be in a relationship with Grantaire more than three months out from now? “—good. That’s good.” 

“Just to be clear, though, this isn’t just your way of ‘reaching out,’ is it?” Grantaire’s expression says ‘coy,’ his voice sounds nervous, and Enjolras is almost endeared enough not to take advantage of having the upper hand.

Almost.

He takes a step closer, reducing the space between them to a mere inch. In the cool of the basement, he can feel heat radiating off of the man and warming the air between them. “That depends: if I ask you to be my boyfriend, would you say ‘maybe’?”

“ _Maybe._ ”

There’s no Courfeyrac or Emilio or Cosette or anyone else to interrupt this time, and when Grantaire brings his lips to Enjolras’s, it’s perfect. 

Grantaire draws a hand up to Enjolras’s face, tracing gently across his cheekbone and along his jaw. “So, um. Would you be interested in staying for dinner? Fantine’s cooking tonight, and she makes the greatest _habichuelas guisadas_ you have ever tas—”

Enjolras cuts him off with his mouth, absolutely hooked now that he knows he can. After a second Grantaire relaxes into it, allowing himself to be pushed back into the wall as Enjolras lets his hands to begin wandering the planes of the man’s chest.

The lights flicker, and Éponine’s voice rings loud and clear through the basement. “Whatever’s happening down there needs to clear out, Dad says the table needs set.”

Grantaire releases a long-suffering sigh as he wraps Enjolras protectively into a hug. “We’ll be right up!” He leans in, pressing another close-mouthed kiss to Enjolras’s lips. “Verdict on dinner?”

Enjolras answers the question with his own chaste kiss. “Dinner sounds great.”

His boyfriend clasps his hand before moving to start up the steps. “Should probably tell whoever you have waiting out in the car that they can clear out, then.”

Enjolras makes a face he knows the man can’t see. “I drove myself.”

“Did you now?” Amusement plays in Grantaire’s voice. “How long did it take you to get here?”

Forty miserable minutes. “Not long.”

“I’m sure.” They stop at the top step, door still closed and facing one another. “I’m glad you found me in the parking lot that day,” Grantaire whispers.

“I’m glad you said ‘yes.’”

There’s plain adoration on Grantaire’s face that Enjolras is certain that he mirrors before Grantaire flicks the basement light out and shuts the door.

“All right, all right, just how Goddamned many people are we feeding today?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not that it's relevant to this chapter, but the age of consent in the state of Washington is 16. Photos and videos are still illegal, though, including if a hypothetical legal party were to share their legal media with their underaged partner.
> 
> @Enj's mom: I'm available for adoption. Just saying.
> 
> If anyone can figure out R's birthday I will write you a short (under 5K) fic based on a prompt of your choosing (author's personal limits apply).


	8. Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Warnings:** vague gesturing at the general possibility of less-than-innocent phone calls

It’s been a long and stressful week, but finals are finally done and out of the way, and Courfeyrac has convinced everyone (Enjolras, Combeferre, Marius, and even Éponine) to celebrate senior week on a camping trip in the Cascades. Enjolras is fairly certain he’s not made for camping, but it hasn’t stopped him from researching the hell out of it in an effort to make the most of the experience.

Still, in the busyness of the end of the year, he’s hardly had time to speak with, much less see, Grantaire, and their group embarks on their weeklong trek tomorrow morning. A quick glance at the time tells him it’s 11:37PM, well-within Grantaire’s usual waking hours. Enjolras foregoes texting his boyfriend in favor of video calling him, taking the opportunity as the call goes through to adjust his desk light, fix his hair, and—perhaps a bit optimistically—undo the top several buttons of his shirt.

“Enj? Hey,” Grantaire answers blearily. 

“Hey R, is now a bad time? I can’t see you.”

“No, no, now is—” A yawn is suppressed, and a light flickers on to reveal Grantaire with severe bedhead in an unfamiliar, orange bathroom. “Now is great.”

“Where are you?” 

“Conference. Did I tell you? I forget.”

Now that Grantaire mentions it, Enjolras vaguely recalls mentions of a regional meeting for burgeoning electricians. “You did, you did. I’m sorry.”

“No, it’s cool, you’re good. What’s up?”

Enjolras feels himself flushing. “I mean...I just missed you.”

Grantaire cocks a suggestive eyebrow. “Did you now?”

“Yeah, we haven—wait, why are you talking so quietly?” Even with earbuds visibly in, his boyfriend’s voice is raspy and soft.

“Feuilly’s asleep in the room, don’t wanna wake him up.”

Enjolras scoffs in disbelief. “Why did you answer my call then? No, Jesus, Grantaire, can you—my God, _go to sleep._ ”

Grantaire grins. “Love you, _Ange._ ”

“ _Bye._ ” Enjolras hangs up succinctly before the guilt settles in.

The man’s still in the orange bathroom when Enjolras calls back. “Decide that you couldn’t resi—”

“I love you too,” Enjolras says hastily. “Bye again.”

He sighs before looking back at the dark phone screen and grinning. The next time Enjolras sees the man will be their one-year anniversary and Enjolras’s graduation, and he’s not sure which he’s more excited for.

He looks back at the half-packed backpack on his bed, smile dropping from his face summarily. Courfeyrac can help him with the rest of it tomorrow, he decides. He moves the bag from his bed to the floor, stripping out of his interview clothing and changing into pajamas.

Once in bed, he pulls out his phone again, ostensibly to charge it but knowing that he has no intentions of putting it away just yet. He opens his texts with Grantaire and sees that he already has a message from the man.

[23:43] **R:** Have you finished that play I lent you?

Enjolras rolls his eyes, smiling.

[23:46] **You:** u mean the terrible 1 w forced heteronormative roles that glamorizes abuse  
[23:46] **R:** The very one  
[23:46] **R:** So did you finish it yet or  
[23:47] **You:** i did  
[23:47] **R:** And?  
[23:47] **R:** Thoughts?  
[23:48] **You:** mostly ‘y did r make me read this’  
[23:48] **R:** I’m broadening your horizons  
[23:49] **R:** Also “if I be waspish, best beware my sting” is metal af and definitely made me think of you

Enjolras hides his grin despite knowing that there’s no way for anyone to see it.

[23:50] **You:** ill concede that point  
[23:51] **You:** u make a much more effective petruchio  
[23:51] **R:** Awwwwwwwwwwwwww thnx :*  
[23:51] **R:** You’re a much less reasonable Katherine, but I love you anyway. ;)  
[23:52] **You:** i take that as a compliment  
[23:52] **R:** You would  
[23:53] **R:** You know, that wouldn’t fly in 16th century Italy  
[23:53] **You:** then i suppose ill just have 2 count myself lucky that i was born in 21st century america  
[23:54] **R:** I guess so  
[23:55] **You:** go 2 bed  
[23:55] **R:** You first  
[23:56] **You:** fine  
[23:56] **You:** i love you  
[23:57] **R:** Love you too  
[23:57] **R:** Even when you try to booty call me at midnight and still have the nerve to hang up on me  
[23:57] **R:** Twice  
[23:59] **R:** (I saw that flash of collarbone, you Harlot you)  
[00:01] **R:** Your read receipts are on btw, you’re not fooling anyone  
[00:03] **R:** Oh, so that’s how it’s gonna be  
[00:04] **R:** Well two can play this game  
[00:05] **R:** The melting of the polar icecaps is actually beneficial for the environment as a whole  
[00:07] **R:** Organized democratic government is implicitly inferior to their autocratic counterparts  
[00:08] **R:** “Vegetable” is an invented categorization made from the leftovers of all of the other food groups  
[00:11] **R:** Legal marriage age is culturally subjective and not up to us to decide for others  
[00:13] **R:** Beyonce is objectively merely okay  
[00:15] **R:** (I'm gonna live to regret at least one of these, and the scariest part is not knowing which one)  
[00:17] **R:** I’m actually really impressed that you’ve managed to hold out for this long, so I will be going to sleep now  
[00:17] **R:** See you in a week <3  
[00:20] **R:** (btw I still love you)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Grantaire's suggestions are intentionally inflammatory and not sides anyone should take (except vegetables, I'll defend that one until I am presented with solid evidence otherwise). Please practice common sense before reacting to them.
> 
> Also, the play they're referring to (if you couldn't guess) is _Taming of the Shrew_ , a pretty messed-up play that _10 Things I Hate About You_ is loosely based on.

**Author's Note:**

> I accept payment in comments, love notes, and hate-anons below or at my [tumblr](http://shitpostingfromthebarricade.tumblr.com).


End file.
